A grim new international science assessment concludes that climate change is making the world’s oceans warm, rise, lose oxygen and get more acidic at an ever-faster pace, while melting even more ice and snow.
But that’s nothing compared to what Wednesday’s special U.N.-affiliated oceans and ice report says is coming if global warming doesn’t slow down. It projects three feet of rising seas by the end of the century, much fewer fish, weakening ocean currents, even less snow and ice and nastier hurricanes.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says warming of oceans and ice will harm people, plants, animals, food and the world economy.
Report co-author Hans-Otto Portner says with sea level rise and all these changes, Earth is looking at a future completely different than it is now.