Oceans and carbon

Another way oceans influence climate is by storing carbon. This atom* enters into the composition of many molecules*, including carbon dioxide (CO2). This gas is naturally present in the atmosphere, but human activity industry, automobile traffic and the burning if wood, coal, natural gas and fuel oil have increased its production. In addition to carbon dioxide, these activities also give up other gases, such as methane (produced by rice growing and cattle-raising for instance) and ‘Chlorofluorocarbons’ (CFCs). All these gases contribute to the enhanced greenhouse effect that is threatening to disturb the climate of our planet. 

Global Carbon Cycle

Trapping carbon dioxide in the world’s oceans

Oceans are the biggest potential reservoir for storing the CO2 produced by human activity and for keeping it from entering the atmosphere. This may be an effective way to reduce the consequences of too much CO2. The IOC is closely monitoring initiatives aimed at developing a CO2 trap. Two techniques are currently being tested: a injecting this gas directly into the ocean bottom and b helping plankton, which feed on CO2, to grow in specific areas of the ocean (by adding iron dust). But where these ‘traps’ should be set, and above all, making sure that these techniques will not disturb oceanic ecosystems are major questions that must first be answered.

Solar Radiation

 Due to global warming, the sea level is rising; if this continues, the sea level will be around one miter higher in 100 years. The Maldives islands in the Indian Ocean will be wiped off the map. Here again the world’s oceans play an essential role because they naturally absorb great quantities of CO2: approximately 18 billion tones per year. Algae consume part of this amount and the remainder falls to the sea floor. But this absorption capacity has its limits. In 100 to 200 years it will be saturated and will be saturated and will mo longer be able to compensate for the CO2 emissions caused by human activity.

         The average temperature on earth is already rising. Without efforts to lower greenhouse gas emissions, experts predict an increase in temperature of from 2 to 5ºC by the end of the twenty-first century.     

Oceans and human beings

More than half the world’s inhabitants live near seacoasts today at a distance of less than 200 kilometers from the water. In 2025, this will be the case for more then three-quarters of the world population, in other words for 6.3 billion persons! Most of them don’t live in seaside resorts but are concentrated in enormous cities (metropolises) built on the coast. These city dwellers are often faced with poverty and some of them have less than two US dollars a day to live on.

    
           If so many people crowd next to the shore it’s because that’s where the resources needed to sustain life are found in other words primarily fishing. But this poses a majors problem because as the world population continues to grow and is concentrated in coastal areas it will increasingly depend on ocean resources.

Sea Fish

UNESCO’S proposal for sustainable development and for lowering poverty the coming decade, emphasis that both an economically viable way of life and the riches of the ocean must be mad accessible to all, as well as an environment that is safer and healthier for coastal population.  

  

♦ Fishing, a vital food source

Fishing is the most widespread economic activity of the world’s oceans. If fishing practices were better controlled this industry could feed more people and provide more jobs, especially in developing countries. But today, most fishing zones are being fished out. This is not surprising: 90 million tons of fish are caught each year! To arrive at this figure, fishermen haul in fish of any size and any age, including the very young, and those during their reproductive phase. Species don’t have enough time to reproduce and their population decrease more and more each year. 

Sea Fish Archive

Cooked Fish

Industries fishing techniques can be held responsible for over fishing And they also harm coastal fisheries. Poorly equipped, local fishermen work the waters close to the shoreline where the fish, which are victims of both over fishing and higher concentrations of pollution than in the open sea, are becoming increasingly scarce. In the southern part of the globe the inhabitants of many fishing villages have barely enough fish to eat. It is consequently nearly impossible for them to sell their catch.

Oceans and Pollution

River Pollution

For a long time humans believed that the immensity of the oceans could absorb waste without any consequences. We now know that everything we throw into the ocean modifies its equilibrium: nothing is lost. Oil spills, the proliferation of algae in the Mediterranean, the disappearance of marine species…..we are aware today of the harm caused by pollution, which comes from two main sources.

           Pollution from the continents represents 70 percent of marine pollution. Sewage water industry waste (metals and phosphates), chemical, waste, loaded with pesticides and fertilizers. Once they’ve been used for crops, fertilizers are carried by run-of to rivers, which then transport them to the sea.

Polluted Pond Water

       The second main source is pollution resulting from maritime transport and from oil transport in particular. Everyone knows about oil tanker accidents-Erika and prestige being the most recent-but offshore oil rigs also cause the sadly famous ‘oil spills’. Soiled beaches, oil-smeared birds, uneatable fish and shellfish: the damage they cause is horrendous. But on a worldwide scale, there is a for more serious form of pollution than oil spills from tanker accidents, and that is the deliberate discharge of oil, which as a result constantly degrades the marine environment. The principal guilty parties are the oil tankers that empty their cargo in to the sea. This is called ‘degassing’ (degasification). Despite the creation of surveillance systems and the many measures taken to prohibit this practice, oil tanker are not always very scrupulous* and degas on the high seas clandestinely*. In all approximately 600,000 tons of hydrocarbons are discharged into the oceans every single year! A Large part of it is ‘digested’ by  them: oil dissolves slowly in water and falls to the deeps to never rise again. But that doesn’t keep it from seriously harming marine fauna, and this in turn diminishes the resources of developing countries, which are very dependent on ocean products. In addition to hydrocarbons Other aggressive pollutants also contaminate the oceans, notably waste from chemical products transported by ship that industrialized countries do not want to dispose of themselves. 

Factory Polluted the River

The result is that this cargo is sent to far away country that are less strict about regulation, often to parts of Africa or South America. Thus these are the places that are the most exposed to Pollution hazards. 

 

Targeting Pollution

Plastic Pollution

In 1995, 108 governments and the European Commission working within the scope of the united Nation adopted the ‘Programmer of world action for the protection of marine environments against pollution caused by terrestrial activation.’ All of this countries are truing to lower the emission of pollutants at their source, being aware that ways this is accomplished are: by improving technical processes and closely monitoring industrial discharges; by limiting in vulnerable zones such as Brittany in France, the use of fertilizers responsible for the proliferation of microscopic algae, and by building or improving waste water treatment plants. These countries are also striving to improve human habitats in coastal areas, and to develop the coastline while respecting its natural features.

Humans are directly affected by pollution  

The type of pollution that is most threatening to human being is the discharge of sewage water. First it contaminates bathers, then fish and shellfish, and those who eat them in turn. Cholera and hepatitis epidemics caused through eating contaminated food are becoming a frequent occurrence, especially in Latin America, around the Mediterranean and in Southeast Asia.

            Just having a swim in polluted water is far from being harmless.  According to the world Health Organization (WHO), this is the cause of nearly 250 million cases of intestinal flu each year as well as of respiratory illnesses. Generally speaking, one bather out of twenty risks becoming ill after taking a dip in theses!

Plastic Pollution Video:

Sustainable development

Climate change

Sustainable development is a way of meeting the needs of present day generations without compromising the capacity of future generations to meet their needs, for instance by improving the quality of water and the environment, by minimizing the differences in the standard of living throughout the world, and by changing certain ways of living and consuming. UNESCO is helping to open up an avenue of sustainable development focused on human beings and based on respecting the rights of human and democratic principles, on solidarity, dignity, sharing and equality.

1987. The Brundtland Commission defined for the first time the concept of sustainable development before the United Nations.

1992. Government met in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) for the first Earth Summit (United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development). The summit focused on the key question of how to reconcile the demands of the present day with expectations for the future. There were many debates and alarming observations concerning the current state of our planet and the likely evolution of living conditions. To set the problems aright, more than 150 countries worked on a common programme for the twenty first century, called the ‘Action 21 Programme’. Since then this programme has served as the basis for measuring the progress of the made in change in question.

Carbon

Sea Pathfinder

Warm Shallow Water

2002. From 26 August through  to 4 September in Johannesburg, South Africa, 129 States, including some 100 Chiefs if State and 60,000 delegates, met under the aegis* of the United Nations fir the World Summit on Sustainable Development, also called ‘Rio+10’.Particioants reported on the projects that are needed right now. Despite the reluctance of rich countries to commit to figures and dates, this second Earth Summit accomplished at least two objectives: it made a collective decision to lower greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2 percent within the next 10 years, and many States become aware of the urgency of remedying the ills of our planet. Healthy oceans and coastal regions are vital to sustainable development and poverty reduction. This is why, as mentioned earlier, the Action 21 Programme has an entire chapter devoted to the world’s oceans. Their well-being is essential to the survival of living things and to the cultural, social and economic prosperity of human population. To safeguard our survival or re-establish it we must learn how to manage the world’s oceans and coastlines, basing our decisions on scientific knowledge. This concerns all the countries of the world because:    

One country alone cannot study and monitor the world’s oceans on a continuous basis but it should at least be able to tackle the problems that touch its littoral. Subsequent to extensive urban growth in the 1970s, Brazilian cities such as Sao Paulo and its surrounding areas still have major air and water pollution problems. Their beaches are suffering today because the most polluting industries have been relocated on the littoral. All countries depend either directly or indirectly on the world’s oceans for survival and each must thus assume responsibility for its current condition. In addition, countries for which the economy and living conditions depend directly on the ocean must be provided with the means to solve problems on the local leave.

Wind and currents

Wind Power

The sun heats the upper layer if the world’s oceans to a depth of 20 to 30 meters. In doing so it causes the evaporation of enormous quantities of water, which escapes into the air in the form of water vapour. This transfer od heat between the ocean and atmosphere, which is really a transfer of energy*, causes the air to stir, forming winds. Winds are responsible for creating some of the currents that keep ocean water moving. The three types of ocean currents are surface currents, density-driven or thermohaline currents and slope currents.  

                                                                             

Wind Making Current

                    The action of the wind on the water’s surface creates surface currents. But these don’t move just any which way. Blowing along the equator, the trade winds create east-west current. When they reach the continents these currents run along their edges. Due to the spinning of the earth, currents that meet continents are deviated to the right in the northern hemisphere and to the left in the southern hemisphere (Carioles effect), creating the Gulf Stream in the North Atlantic and the Australian current in the pacific.

            Density-driven or thermohaline currents are deep currents driven by differences in seawater density, caused by variation in salinity and temperature. These currents are vary cold (around 0°C) and they are much slower than surface currents. It takes several centuries for them to circle the globe.

                                                     

Antarctic Ocean Circulation

                                                                 

    Step-1

                                                                         

Step-2

In 1992, governments from around the world met in Rio de Janerio for the United Nation conference on the Environment and development. This marked the first debate on the question of how to satisfy current needs without harming those of future generations (sustainable development). The conference drafted a very thick report called the Action 21 programme; chapter 17 is devoted in its entirety to the world’s oceans, reminding us that the ocean is indispensable for life.

             The last noticeable of the three currents are the slope currents. They can be explained by the fact that the ocean’s surface is not flat but sloped 2 to 3 meters. This slope increases in the presence of atmospheric low-pressure systems. Currents are created to compensate for these differences in an attempt to make the sea level. The ocean currents and the drain in your bathtub circulate water in the same direction because of the spinning of the earth. In the northern hemisphere water swirls clockwise; in the southern hemisphere it swirls counter-clockwise!

The Oceans: Balancing our climate

                                                                                                                

Greenhouse Effect Photo

The world’s oceans play an important role in regulating world climate. So much so that they have been referred to as weather’s ‘steering wheel’. They act in several ways. First of all, oceans store heat when it is too hot either during the summer or and during the day and then release heat in another season or at night. But oceans are not just storage tanks. They are also vehicles: currents carry heat in great quantities from hot regions to cold regions. And when the heart returns the atmosphere, marine breezes push it towards the continents. This is why it is often warmer closer to the ocean than farther inland. The Gulf Stream, for instance, carries warm water from the tropics and warms up the west coats of Europe. This is the reason the climate in western Europe is much milder than in central Europe.

                                                                   

Sunlight Effect

                                                                 

Sea warm water

                                                                 

Atmospheric

                                                                   

Ice Land animal

                                                                   

Weather Testing

         Rainfall is also directly linked to the oceans. The evaporation of seawater fills the air with water vapour and this creates clouds. The amount of evaporation controls could frequency and size. In the tropics evaporation is so grate during the day that when the sun sets and the air cools down, storm clouds form and cause short and violent downpours. Around 380,000 cubic kilometers of water evaporate from the surface of seas and oceans each year and only one-quarter of this amount falls on the continents. The relationship between the world’s oceans and the atmosphere is extremely complex: winds and currents criss-cross and cause all kinds of climatic variations, from simple sea breezes to terrible hurricanes, which can be devastating. One such variation is called ‘EI Nino’. This large scale oceanic phenomenon occurs in the pacific and upsets the climate over that entire region of the globe, sometimes affecting even greater areas.