Ocean 'Wildfires' Are Destroying Marine Life And Putting Humans In Danger

Oceans across the globe are experiencing massive heat waves that could have profound effects on life underneath and the humans above.

The world's oceans are under a lot of stress from multiple factors leading to heatwaves. Global warming paved the way for more frequent, severe and prolonged heat waves throughout the years. There's also the natural ocean cycle of El Niño that affects the temperatures of oceans.

“The starting temperature is much higher, so the absolute temperatures [in a heatwave] are that much higher and more stressful,” Dan Smale of the Marine Biological Association in Plymouth said.

In the last 30 years leading to 2016, heatwaves increased by as much as 50 percent compared to what was observed between 1925 and 1954. Massive and frequent heat waves have an impact on both creatures in the water and humans. For humans, damage to ocean life can lead to both social, political and economic problems.

Malin Pinsky, a professor at Rutgers University, also said that the events would most likely become more common and turn even more severe unless society reduces greenhouse gas emissions. What is even more alarming is that record-breaking events related to global warming have started becoming “normal.” Such big hits may eventually have long-lasting and detrimental effects.

“In the space of one week, scientific publications have underscored that unless we take evasive action, our future oceans will have fewer fish, fewer whales and frequent dramatic shifts in ecological structure will occur, with concerning implications for humans who depend on the ocean,” Dr. Éva Plagányi of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in Australia said. She also claimed that oceanic heat waves are like wildfires.

A Rutgers-led study in the journal Science today supports this as researchers found that climate change has profound effects already on fisheries across the globe. The study claims that as much as 15 percent to 35 percent decline in fisheries swept the East China Sea and the North Sea. Similarly, ocean warming also contributed to a drop in sustainable catches. From 1930 to 2010, the estimated decline is around 4.1 percent for many species of shellfish and fish.

"We were stunned to find that fisheries around the world have already responded to ocean warming," Pinsky said. He co-authored the study.