The sea gets warmer – the species die.
It’s not just coral reefs and fish that are threatened as the oceans warm – it’s all life.
Not since an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs – along with at least half of all other creatures on Earth – has marine life been so vulnerable.
As the oceans get warmer, all habitats are threatened. There are species that do better than others, but all are affected. Biodiversity, the diversity of species, is threatened which in turn will affect us all.
Over the past decade, sea temperatures in the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia have been the warmest in 400 years, according to a recent study published in the prestigious journal Nature.
Warmer seawater combined with acidification could pose a major threat to ocean sharks. Their eggs develop much more poorly, leading to the death of the embryo, according to a new study.
The Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has published this year's State of the Ocean Report, which describes the state of the ocean and marine life.
The situation for fish, birds and seals in the Swedish seas remains critical. We fish too much and release too many harmful substances, says Mats Svensson at the Norwegian Sea and Water Authority.
The sea ice around Antarctica is decreasing and is significantly less than what is normal for the month of September.
The fish in the oceans have shrunk - but at the same time have become more numerous, shows a new global study. This suggests that nature compensates so that the weight of all life is kept stable, the researchers believe. Both warmer seas and our hunger for large fish are thought to contribute.
The world's coral reefs are in trouble. As the oceans get warmer, corals are stressed and eventually die. Coral scientist Tessa Hempson calls corals the "canary in the coal mine". The little bird that used to be placed far down the mine shafts, because when it died you knew the oxygen in the mine would soon run out. A whistleblower who suffers long before we humans do.
Healthy habitats with a diversity of species are important, not least for us to cope with a rapidly changing climate. We have been to the Finnish side of the Baltic Sea and talked to one of the world's leading marine scientists; Alf Norkko.
The Baltic Sea is becoming a hot water bath. It affects the fish more than we might understand. It is a slow process that can be difficult to see. But there is one place where, for a relatively short period of time, scientists have been able to see just that – what happens to the fish when the sea gets warmer. Right next to Forsmark's nuclear power plant in northern Uppland.
"We know approximately how much the fish poop, how much carbon it contains and also how quickly the feces reach the bottom. Against this background, we therefore wanted to investigate how much impact commercial fishing has on carbon storage in the ocean", says Daniele Bianchi from the University of California
How are we affected by the oceans getting warmer?
