I’m sorry to bring you down from one apocalypse (the debt ceiling) just to begin talking about another, but this is important.
Using data provided by the latest U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, scientists have produced an unsettling picture of what will happen to the earth’s oceans throughout the rest this century.
Oceans will continue to warm and lower in pH while plankton production and dissolved oxygen levels will decline, the study found. A tiny fraction of the ocean’s surface in polar regions could see increases in oxygen and productivity, but practically nowhere will seawater cool or see its pH increase.
Those changing conditions will reduce the growth and size of sea creatures, increase mortality, disrupt ocean food webs and cause species to shift toward the poles and into deeper water, the study found. [...]
The oceanic changes will affect between 470 million and 870 million poor people who live in coastal areas of countries that rely on the sea for food and jobs and have little ability to adapt, researchers estimated.
In a world where hundreds of millions of poor people lose their only sources of food and employment, it’s easy to see extremism and conflict following.
The study found that more than 1.2 billion people live in coastal areas that will be effected by shifting biochemistry, but as many as 670 million of those live in areas of poor economic health and high vulnerability.
You can read the full study here.