The findings \u201cdemand urgent action, through stronger multilateral cooperation, greater ambition and decisions grounded in the best available science\u201d.<\/p>\n
The WOA welcomed a UN treaty that came into force in January to protect and sustainably use marine life in international waters, saying it \u201cmarks a historic milestone for ocean stewardship and multilateral cooperation\u201d.<\/p>\n
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said \u201cwe cannot keep treating the ocean as limitless\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe must build a new relationship with the ocean: Grounded in science. Framed by international law. And built on shared responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n
The report, which mostly covers the period between 2018-2023, paints a stark picture of the state of the oceans.<\/p>\n
Around 16% of the total increase in ocean heat content recorded since 1955 has occurred since 2018 alone, the assessment found.<\/p>\n
The oceans have absorbed more than 90% of the excess heat and 30% of the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere by the burning of fossil fuels.<\/p>\n
As waters warm, they expand, helping drive sea-level rise alongside meltwater from glaciers and ice sheets.<\/p>\n
The report said sea level continued to rise \u201cat increasing rates\u201d, more than doubling from less than 2mm a year before 2015 to 4.3mm a year in 2023.<\/p>\n
While millimetres might seem small, they \u201cmultiply up really quickly\u201d, said Ian Butler, an Australia-based marine ecologist and joint coordinator of the WOA\u2019s group of experts.<\/p>\n
Melting ice<\/p>\n
The Arctic Ocean could become ice-free in Septembers by the middle of the century, with the earliest such conditions possible in the 2030s under all emissions scenarios, the report said.<\/p>\n
Butler said: \u201cWe\u2019re seriously looking at an ice-free Arctic Ocean for parts of the year within 10 or 20 years.\u201d <\/p>\n
The ice melt in the northern pole is also reshaping geopolitics, opening previously inaccessible shipping routes and heightening competition among major powers including the United States, Russia and China.<\/p>\n
In the South Pole, Antarctic sea ice, which had gradually increased between 1979 and 2015, has \u201crapidly declined\u201d since 2016.<\/p>\n
Marine ecosystems<\/p>\n
Climate change is also reshaping marine life, with some fish species moving to cooler or deeper waters to survive.<\/p>\n
Butler said: \u201cSome have no future at all because there\u2019s nowhere for them to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coral reefs are among the most threatened ecosystems.<\/p>\n
Repeated marine heatwaves and storms \u201cleave little time for recovery and are pushing reefs towards collapse\u201d, the report said.<\/p>\n
Bleaching events since 2018 have caused widespread coral mortality, with the WOA warning that 90% of reefs could disappear if warming tops 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.<\/p>\n
Plastic pollution and deep-sea mining<\/p>\n
The report called for a reduction in the production of plastics – an issue at a standstill in international negotiations.<\/p>\n
Each year, 52.1 million tonnes of plastic waste spills into the ocean, contributing to an estimated 24.4 trillion microplastic particles.<\/p>\n
Microplastics are now known to affect more than 4000 marine species.<\/p>\n
The report highlighted growing concerns about deep-sea mining and called for a coordinated international response.<\/p>\n
While exploration for deep-sea mining is far advanced, no company or nation has started production on a commercial scale.<\/p>\n
Critics fear it would smother marine life with waste and the noise of heavy machinery will disrupt oceanic migrations.<\/p>\n
Trump ocean cuts<\/p>\n
US President Donald Trump\u2019s administration is set to remove hundreds of deep-sea scientific instruments used for a decade to monitor the effects of climate change on marine environments.<\/p>\n
Butler said: \u201cThe deep ocean monitoring system is an extremely important part of our global monitoring and understanding of the ocean. The removal of it would leave a huge gap in our long-term ocean science.\u201d<\/p>\n
– AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The findings \u201cdemand urgent action, through stronger multilateral cooperation, greater ambition and decisions grounded in the best available…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":469594,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[432,95,192,806,115,537,52331,84587,273,63059,2082,1437,661,111,139,69,18718,1560,801,147,1361,25275,25444,51463,8222],"class_list":["post-469593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-action","tag-and","tag-are","tag-as","tag-calls","tag-crisis","tag-deepening","tag-demands","tag-environment","tag-faster","tag-for","tag-global","tag-major","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-oceans","tag-report","tag-rising","tag-science","tag-that","tag-un","tag-urgent","tag-warming","tag-warned"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}