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Here's where over 90% of the extra heat from global warming is going and the billions of dollars it's costing us
By Jessica Orwig
17 hours ago
(NASA Goddard Scientific Visualization Studio) Global image of surface temperature between December 23-25, 2013. Dark blue is -36 degrees Fahrenheit and dark red is 89 degrees Fahrenheit.
It's no surprise that climate change is raising summer temperatures in many parts of the globe, but what you might not know is where most of that extra heat is going.
Scientists estimate that
as much as 90% of it is heading straight into our oceans, and that has
major consequences not only for marine wildlife but for the world's
economy.
The average surface temperature around the world has increased by roughly 1.08 degrees Fahrenheit over the last 40 years, but that number would be a lot larger if it weren't for the oceans.
"To date, the oceans have
essentially been the planet's refrigerator and carbon dioxide storage
locker," Hans-Otto Pörtner, who is a researcher at the Alref Wegener
Institute, Helmholtz Centra for Polar and Marine Research, told ScienceDaily.
"For instance, since the 1970s they've absorbed roughly 93% of the
additional heat produced by the greenhouse effect, greatly helping to
slow the warming of our planet."
Lesser of the two evils
Pörtner is a co-author on a study published July 3 in Science
that looks at which marine ecosystems — such as coastal habitats and
capture fisheries — are at risk of suffering irreversible damage by the
end of the 21st century. Depending on one of two potential scenarios
that the researchers addressed, the risks for worldwide irreparable
damage will either be moderate or severe by the end of the 21st century.
(Hagainativ/Wikimedia Commons) In the first scenario, the researchers assume that humans get their act together, immediately, and drastically slash the rate of carbon dioxide emissions in line with the regulations set by the Copenhagen Accord — a document introduced in 2009 to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change that estimates how much 80% of the countries in the world should reduce emissions to prevent a total increase of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century. The second scenario assumes that carbon dioxide emissions continue on their current, upward trend, and that humans don't take extreme action to curb our emissions.
In the first scenario, the
researchers report that most risks will remain a moderate possibility.
But in the second scenario, "if we just go on with business as usual,"
Pörtner told ScienceDaily, "by the end of this century the changes will
hit nearly every ecosystem in the oceans and cause irreparable harm for
marine life."
It's hard to estimate exactly
how much money these irreversible damages to the oceans' ecosystems will
cost humanity, but here are some estimates the researchers site:
- Coastal habitats, including coral reefs, oyster beds, and kelp forests, protect human infrastructure from storms saving an estimated $23.2 billion each year in the US alone.
- Increasing oceanic temperatures and acidity will either reduce mussel production by 50% (scenario 1) or 70% (scenario 2) by the year 2100, which could cost the world over $100 billion by the end of the century.
- Unfortunately, coral reefs face severe decline and mortality rates regardless of which scenario the researchers assessed. From tourism alone, this mass die off will cost anywhere between $1.9 to $12 billion and up to 69,000 jobs in Australia alone by 2100.
Grabbing attention
Numbers like these are starting to catch the attention of asset management firms like investor Jeremy Grantham, whose firm, Grantham Mayo van Otterloo
(GMO), had a total market value of more than $118 billion in March
2015, making it one of the largest asset fund management firms in the
world.
(Flickr/pictures of money) In GMO's latest quarterly report, Grantham sites eight factors that could be responsible for the "potentially slowing long-term growth" in US gross domestic product (GDP). And among these eight factors, Grantham includes "steadily increasing climate difficulties."
Increasing temperatures
and acidity in the oceans are just one of the climate difficulties that
Grantham sites. He also addresses the drought, flooding, and precipitation variability that global warming is predicted to intensify around the world, according to the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
If we do not make changes now,
we will suffer the consequences in the future. And aside from the
devastation to Earth's marine wildlife, people's finances would likely
suffer as well:
"We do a terrible job of planning for the long term, particularly in
postponing gratification, and we are wickedly bad at dealing with the
implications of compound math," Grantham solemnly concludes.
"All of this makes it easy for
us to forget about the previously painful market busts; facilitates our
pushing stocks and markets on occasion to levels that make no
mathematical sense, and allows us regrettably, to ignore the logic of
finite resources and a deteriorating climate until the consequences are
pushed up our short-term noses."
NOW WATCH: This animated map shows how different our oceans will be by 2050More From Business Insider
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