A high-level international workshop convened by IPSO met at the University of Oxford earlier this year. It was the first inter-disciplinary international meeting of marine scientists of its kind and was designed to consider the cumulative impact of multiple stressors on the ocean, including warming, acidification, and overfishing.
An international panel of marine experts warns in a report released yesterday that the world’s ocean is at high risk of entering a phase of extinction of marine species unprecedented in human history.
The preliminary report arises from the first ever interdisciplinary international workshop to consider the cumulative impact of all stressors affecting the ocean. Considering the latest research across all areas of marine science, the workshop examined the combined effects of pollution, acidification, ocean warming, over fishing and hypoxia (deoxygenation).
The scientific panel concluded that:
• The combination of stressors on the ocean is creating the conditions associated with every previous major extinction of species in Earth’s history
• The speed and rate of degeneration in the ocean is far faster than anyone has predicted
• Many of the negative impacts previously identified are greater than the worst predictions.
• Although difficult to assess because of the unprecedented speed of change, the first steps to globally significant extinction may have begun with a rise in the extinction threat to marine species such as reefEforming corals
Dr Alex Rogers, Scientific Director of the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) which convened the workshop said: “The findings are shocking. As we considered the cumulative effect of what humankind does to the ocean the implications became far worse than we had individually realized. This is a very serious situation demanding unequivocal action at every level. We are looking at consequences for humankind that will impact in our lifetime, and worse, our children’s and generations beyond that.”
Marine scientists from institutions around the world gathered at Oxford University under the auspices of IPSO and the IUCN. The group reviewed recent research by world ocean experts and found firm evidence that the effects of climate change, coupled with other humanEinduced impacts such as overEfishing and nutrient run off from farming, have already caused a dramatic decline in ocean health.
Increasing hypoxia (low oxygen levels) and anoxia (absence of oxygen, known as ocean dead zones) combined with warming of the ocean and acidification are the three factors which have been present in every mass extinction event in Earth’s history.
There is strong scientific evidence that these three factors are combining in the ocean again, exacerbated by multiple severe stressors. The scientific panel concluded that a new extinction event was inevitable if the current trajectory of damage continues.
As examples, the panel point out:
• the rate at which carbon is being absorbed by the ocean is already far greater now than at the time of the last globally significant extinction of marine species, some 55 million years ago, when up to 50% of some groups of deep sea animals were wiped out.
• A single mass coral bleaching event in 1998 killed 16% of all the world’s tropical coral reefs.
• Overfishing has reduced some commercial fish stocks and populations of by catch species by more than 90%.
• New science also suggests that pollutants including flame retardant chemicals and synthetic musks found in detergents are being traced in the Polar Seas, and that these chemicals can be absorbed by tiny plastic particles in the ocean which are in turn ingested by marine creatures.
The experts agreed that adding these and other threats together means that the ocean and the ecosystems within it are unable to recover, being constantly bombarded with multiple attacks.
The report sets out a series of recommendations and calls on states, regional bodies and the United Nations to enact measures to better conserve ocean ecosystems, and in particular demands the urgent adoption of better governance of the largely unprotected high seas which make up the majority of the world’s ocean.
Dan Laffoley, Marine Chair of IUCN’s World Commission on protected Areas and Senior Advisor on Marine Science and Conservation for IUCN, and coEauthor of the report, said: “The world’s leading experts on oceans are surprised by the rate and magnitude of changes we are seeing. The challenges for the future of the ocean are vast, but unlike previous generations we know what now needs to happen. The time
to protect the blue heart of our planet is now, today and urgent”.
The 3 day workshop, co-sponsored by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), looked at the latest science across different disciplines.
The 27 participants from 18 organisations in 6 countries produced a grave assessment of current threats — and a stark conclusion about future risks to marine and human life if the current trajectory of damage continues: that the world's ocean is at high risk of entering a phase of extinction of marine species unprecedented in human history.
Delegates called for urgent and unequivocal action to halt further declines in ocean health. (click for press release)
The report summary (released 21 June 2011) outlines the main findings and recommendations. The full report will be released at a later date.
Title: Rogers, A.D. & Laffoley, D.d'A. 2011. International Earth system expert workshop on ocean stresses and impacts. Summary report. IPSO Oxford, 18 pp. For a full list of participants, please see table at the end of the long version.
Report Summary: long version / shorter version.
The report is also accompanied by four case studies, which look in more detail at some of the workshop's main findings.
Case Study 1: The potentially deadly trio of factors — warming, acidification and anoxia — affecting today's oceans, by Professor Jelle Bijma, Marine Biogeosciences, Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research. Watch his explanation, beginning with the growing problem of anoxia, or dead zones, in the ocean.
In Brief: Most, if not all, of the five global mass extinctions in Earth's history carry the fingerprints of the main symptoms of global carbon perturbations (global warming, ocean acidification and anoxia or lack of oxygen; e.g. Veron, 2008).
It is these three factors — the 'deadly trio' — which are present in the ocean today. In fact, the current carbon perturbation is unprecedented in the Earth's history because of the high rate and speed of change. Acidification is occurring faster than in the past 55 million years, and with the added man-made stressors of overfishing and pollution, undermining ocean resilience.
Download Case Study PDF
Case Study 2: End of paradise: Coral reefs facing multiple attacks, by Ove Hoegh-Guldberg , Director, Global Change Institute, University of Queensland
In Brief: What the multi-disciplinary approach of the IPSO workshop made clear for the first time was the multiple threats reefs are facing, that are now acting together to have a greater impact than if they were occurring on their own.
This suggests that existing scientific projections of how coral reefs will respond to global warming have been highly conservative and must now be modified.
Case Study 3: Pollution and Marine Species: new challenges of an old problem by Professor Tom Hutchinson, Centre for Environment, Fisheries & Aquaculture Science (CEFAS)
In Brief: Continued releases and slow breakdown rates mean that legacy chemical pollution ( such as from DDT) remains a major concern. However, concerns have been raised recently over a wide range of novel chemicals now being found in marine ecosystems or suspected to be harmful to marine life. High-profile examples include brominated flame retardants, fluorinated compounds, pharmaceuticals and synthetic musks used in detergents and personal care products.
Some of these chemicals have been located recently in the Canadian Arctic seas, and some are known to be endocrine disrupters or can damage immune systems. Marine litter and plastics are also of major concern, and there is evidence that certain plastics can transport other harmful chemicals in the marine environment.
Case Study 4: Vanishing Resource: The Tale of the Chinese Bahaba by Dr William Cheung, Lecturer in Marine Ecosystem Services, School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia
In Brief: Scientists at the IPSO meeting agreed that overfishing is exerting an intolerable pressure on ecosystems already under attack by the effects of acidification and warming, and other largely man-made ocean problems. A recent study showed that 63% of the assessed fish stocks worldwide are over-exploited or depleted and over half of them require further reduction of fishing, in order to recover.
The near extinction of a fish called Chinese bahaba (Bahaba taipingensis) is one of the many examples that highlight how overfishing threatens marine biodiversity. It has taken less than seventy years for this giant fish to become critically endangered after it was first described by scientists in the 1930s.
Download Case Study PDF
Other contributors to the IPSO/IUCN workshop:
Professor Dan Laffoley, Senior Advisor at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature emphasises the vital role of the ocean for humans and the deadly combination of stressors at play.
Professor Charles Sheppard, Warwick University gives further perspective to the extinction threat facing coral reefs — and stresses that the knock-on effects are already being felt on land.
Professor Chris Reid, Marine Institute, University of Plymouth and Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean Science highlights the speed of change which has been greater than most scientists prediced even in worst case scenarios.
Dr. Alex Rogers, Scientific Director of IPSO and Professor of Conservation Biology at the Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, gives the overview of the main problems affecting the ocean — and some suggested solutions.
http://www.stateoftheocean.org/pdfs/1906_IPSO-LONG.pdf
An international panel of marine experts warns in a report released yesterday that the world’s ocean is at high risk of entering a phase of extinction of marine species unprecedented in human history.
The preliminary report arises from the first ever interdisciplinary international workshop to consider the cumulative impact of all stressors affecting the ocean. Considering the latest research across all areas of marine science, the workshop examined the combined effects of pollution, acidification, ocean warming, over fishing and hypoxia (deoxygenation).
The scientific panel concluded that:
• The combination of stressors on the ocean is creating the conditions associated with every previous major extinction of species in Earth’s history
• The speed and rate of degeneration in the ocean is far faster than anyone has predicted
• Many of the negative impacts previously identified are greater than the worst predictions.
• Although difficult to assess because of the unprecedented speed of change, the first steps to globally significant extinction may have begun with a rise in the extinction threat to marine species such as reefEforming corals
Dr Alex Rogers, Scientific Director of the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) which convened the workshop said: “The findings are shocking. As we considered the cumulative effect of what humankind does to the ocean the implications became far worse than we had individually realized. This is a very serious situation demanding unequivocal action at every level. We are looking at consequences for humankind that will impact in our lifetime, and worse, our children’s and generations beyond that.”
Marine scientists from institutions around the world gathered at Oxford University under the auspices of IPSO and the IUCN. The group reviewed recent research by world ocean experts and found firm evidence that the effects of climate change, coupled with other humanEinduced impacts such as overEfishing and nutrient run off from farming, have already caused a dramatic decline in ocean health.
Increasing hypoxia (low oxygen levels) and anoxia (absence of oxygen, known as ocean dead zones) combined with warming of the ocean and acidification are the three factors which have been present in every mass extinction event in Earth’s history.
There is strong scientific evidence that these three factors are combining in the ocean again, exacerbated by multiple severe stressors. The scientific panel concluded that a new extinction event was inevitable if the current trajectory of damage continues.
As examples, the panel point out:
• the rate at which carbon is being absorbed by the ocean is already far greater now than at the time of the last globally significant extinction of marine species, some 55 million years ago, when up to 50% of some groups of deep sea animals were wiped out.
• A single mass coral bleaching event in 1998 killed 16% of all the world’s tropical coral reefs.
• Overfishing has reduced some commercial fish stocks and populations of by catch species by more than 90%.
• New science also suggests that pollutants including flame retardant chemicals and synthetic musks found in detergents are being traced in the Polar Seas, and that these chemicals can be absorbed by tiny plastic particles in the ocean which are in turn ingested by marine creatures.
The experts agreed that adding these and other threats together means that the ocean and the ecosystems within it are unable to recover, being constantly bombarded with multiple attacks.
The report sets out a series of recommendations and calls on states, regional bodies and the United Nations to enact measures to better conserve ocean ecosystems, and in particular demands the urgent adoption of better governance of the largely unprotected high seas which make up the majority of the world’s ocean.
Dan Laffoley, Marine Chair of IUCN’s World Commission on protected Areas and Senior Advisor on Marine Science and Conservation for IUCN, and coEauthor of the report, said: “The world’s leading experts on oceans are surprised by the rate and magnitude of changes we are seeing. The challenges for the future of the ocean are vast, but unlike previous generations we know what now needs to happen. The time
to protect the blue heart of our planet is now, today and urgent”.
The 3 day workshop, co-sponsored by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), looked at the latest science across different disciplines.
The 27 participants from 18 organisations in 6 countries produced a grave assessment of current threats — and a stark conclusion about future risks to marine and human life if the current trajectory of damage continues: that the world's ocean is at high risk of entering a phase of extinction of marine species unprecedented in human history.
Delegates called for urgent and unequivocal action to halt further declines in ocean health. (click for press release)
The report summary (released 21 June 2011) outlines the main findings and recommendations. The full report will be released at a later date.
Title: Rogers, A.D. & Laffoley, D.d'A. 2011. International Earth system expert workshop on ocean stresses and impacts. Summary report. IPSO Oxford, 18 pp. For a full list of participants, please see table at the end of the long version.
Report Summary: long version / shorter version.
The report is also accompanied by four case studies, which look in more detail at some of the workshop's main findings.
Case Study 1: The potentially deadly trio of factors — warming, acidification and anoxia — affecting today's oceans, by Professor Jelle Bijma, Marine Biogeosciences, Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research. Watch his explanation, beginning with the growing problem of anoxia, or dead zones, in the ocean.
In Brief: Most, if not all, of the five global mass extinctions in Earth's history carry the fingerprints of the main symptoms of global carbon perturbations (global warming, ocean acidification and anoxia or lack of oxygen; e.g. Veron, 2008).
It is these three factors — the 'deadly trio' — which are present in the ocean today. In fact, the current carbon perturbation is unprecedented in the Earth's history because of the high rate and speed of change. Acidification is occurring faster than in the past 55 million years, and with the added man-made stressors of overfishing and pollution, undermining ocean resilience.
Download Case Study PDF
Case Study 2: End of paradise: Coral reefs facing multiple attacks, by Ove Hoegh-Guldberg , Director, Global Change Institute, University of Queensland
In Brief: What the multi-disciplinary approach of the IPSO workshop made clear for the first time was the multiple threats reefs are facing, that are now acting together to have a greater impact than if they were occurring on their own.
This suggests that existing scientific projections of how coral reefs will respond to global warming have been highly conservative and must now be modified.
Case Study 3: Pollution and Marine Species: new challenges of an old problem by Professor Tom Hutchinson, Centre for Environment, Fisheries & Aquaculture Science (CEFAS)
In Brief: Continued releases and slow breakdown rates mean that legacy chemical pollution ( such as from DDT) remains a major concern. However, concerns have been raised recently over a wide range of novel chemicals now being found in marine ecosystems or suspected to be harmful to marine life. High-profile examples include brominated flame retardants, fluorinated compounds, pharmaceuticals and synthetic musks used in detergents and personal care products.
Some of these chemicals have been located recently in the Canadian Arctic seas, and some are known to be endocrine disrupters or can damage immune systems. Marine litter and plastics are also of major concern, and there is evidence that certain plastics can transport other harmful chemicals in the marine environment.
Case Study 4: Vanishing Resource: The Tale of the Chinese Bahaba by Dr William Cheung, Lecturer in Marine Ecosystem Services, School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia
In Brief: Scientists at the IPSO meeting agreed that overfishing is exerting an intolerable pressure on ecosystems already under attack by the effects of acidification and warming, and other largely man-made ocean problems. A recent study showed that 63% of the assessed fish stocks worldwide are over-exploited or depleted and over half of them require further reduction of fishing, in order to recover.
The near extinction of a fish called Chinese bahaba (Bahaba taipingensis) is one of the many examples that highlight how overfishing threatens marine biodiversity. It has taken less than seventy years for this giant fish to become critically endangered after it was first described by scientists in the 1930s.
Download Case Study PDF
Other contributors to the IPSO/IUCN workshop:
Professor Dan Laffoley, Senior Advisor at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature emphasises the vital role of the ocean for humans and the deadly combination of stressors at play.
Professor Charles Sheppard, Warwick University gives further perspective to the extinction threat facing coral reefs — and stresses that the knock-on effects are already being felt on land.
Professor Chris Reid, Marine Institute, University of Plymouth and Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean Science highlights the speed of change which has been greater than most scientists prediced even in worst case scenarios.
Dr. Alex Rogers, Scientific Director of IPSO and Professor of Conservation Biology at the Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, gives the overview of the main problems affecting the ocean — and some suggested solutions.
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