Towards Turbulence

As countries grapple with intense marine heat waves and stronger storms, the latest IPCC report says climate change has already altered our oceans, polar regions and high snowy mountains

- Akshit Sangomla

THE TIMING could not have been more coincidental. As the ocean off the western coast of North America warms up at an unusually rapid pace, triggering fears of drought and warnings of harm to salmons, sea lions and other marine life, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has released a report that says marine heat waves have become twice more frequent in the past four decades and are lasting longer.

“The world’s ocean and cryosphere have been ‘taking the heat’ from climate change for decades, and consequences for nature and humanity are sweeping and severe,” Ko Barrett, vice-chair of IPCC, said while releasing the Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (SROCCC). Prepared with reference to 7,000 scientific publications, SROCCC is the first such report to look into the impacts of climate change on the planet’s vast oceans and fragile ice sheets, which are home to some 1,500 million people and influence everything from climate and energy to trade, transport and culture worldwide. “The rapid changes to the ocean and the frozen parts of our planet are forcing people from coastal cities to remote Arctic communities to fundamentally alter their ways of life,” said Barrett.

The report finds that human activities are responsible for 84 to 90 per cent of the marine heat waves that occurred in the last one decade, and says the ocean will continue to warm throughout the 21 st century. By 2081, the frequency of marine heat waves could jump by 20 to 50 times.