Humanity must rescue oceans to rescue itself, warns UN report

Crumbling ice sheets, marine heatwaves, melting glaciers, ocean de zones, thawing permafrost- a raft of impacts on sea and ice are decimating fish stocks, lifting seas, depleting freshwater stores, and incubating superstorms that will rav some cities annually by mid-century. Some of se impacts are irreversible on a timescale of centuries, according to a landmark assessment approved by 195-nation Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Synsizing 7,000 peer-reviewed studies, report is yet ar smelling-salts reminder that record greenhouse gas emissions, mostly from burning fossil fuels, are driving planet towards a hothouse climate our species could find intolerable. But it also raises a red flag on need to confront changes that can longer be averted. 

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'Major changes in oceans'

"Even if we man to limit global warming, we will continue to see major changes in oceans," said Valerie Masson-Delmotte, a researcher at Laboratory for Climate and Environmental Sciences and an IPCC co-chair. "But it will at least buy us some time, both for future impacts, and to apt."

For some island nations and coastal cities, that will almost certainly mean finding new places to call home. underlying 900-p scientific report is fourth such UN report in less than a year, with ors focused on a 1.5-Celsius cap on global warming, decline of biodiversity, as well as land use and global food system. All four conclude that humanity must overhaul how it produces, distributes and consumes almost everything to avoid worst ravs of global warming and environmental degration. 

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Sea-level rise

By absorbing a quarter of manme CO2 and soaking up more than 90% of heat generated by greenhouse gases, oceans have kept planet liveable- but at a terrible cost, report finds.

" oceans and cryosphere" -- Earth's frozen zones -- "have been taking heat from climate change for deces," said IPCC co-chair Ko Barrett, an official at US National Oceanic and Atmospheric ministration (AA). "But it can't keep up."

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Seas have grown acidic, potentially undermining ir capacity to draw down CO2; warmer surface water has expanded force and range of dely tropical storms; marine heatwaves are wiping out shallow-water coral reefs, which are unlikely to survive century. Most threatening of all, accelerating melt-off from glaciers and especially Earth's ice sheets atop Greenland and Antarctica are driving sea-level rise. As if on cue, part of a massive glacier on Italian side of Mont Blanc mountain range was deemed close to collapse on Wednesday, a victim of rapid melting in late summer heat. 

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