oceans and marine life are important to us. Did you know the Oceans cover greater than 70% of the earth’s surface? They contain 99% of the living space on earth! Without this space for organisms to survive, there would be five fewer phyla of animals on the earth. Perhaps this is the most important reason to protect the oceans
Exploration is key to increasing our understanding of the ocean, so we can more effectively manage, conserve, regulate, and use ocean resources that are vital to our economy and to all of our lives. Despite the fact that the ocean covers approximately 70% of Earth’s surface and plays a critical role in supporting life on our planet, from the air we breathe and the food we eat to …
The ocean influences climate by: absorbing solar radiation and releasing heat needed to drive atmospheric circulation, releasing aerosols that influence cloud cover, providing most of the water that falls on land as rain, and absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it for years to millions of years. Ocean Surface Topography
WHY ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION IS IMPORTANT “Environmental education provides important opportunities for students to become engaged in real world issues that transcend classroom walls. They can see the relevance of their classroom studies to the complex environmental issues confronting our planet and they can acquire the skills they’ll need to be …
Ocean exploration is about making discoveries, searching for things that are unusual and unexpected.
Despite the fact that the ocean covers approximately 70% of Earth’s surface and plays a critical role in supporting life on our planet, from the air we breathe and the food we eat to weather and climate patterns, our understanding of the ocean remains limited.
Exploration helps to ensure that ocean resources are not just managed, but managed in a sustainable way, so those resources are around for future generations to enjoy. Exploration of the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone is important for national security, allowing us to set boundaries, protect American interests, and claim ocean resources.
The NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research is the only federal program dedicated to exploring the deep ocean, closing prominent gaps in our basic understanding of U.S. deep waters and the seafloor and delivering the ocean information needed to strengthen the economy, health, and security of our nation.
The ocean influences climate by: absorbing solar radiation and releasing heat needed to drive atmospheric circulation, releasing aerosols that influence cloud cover, providing most of the water that falls on land as rain, and absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it for years to millions of years.
The ocean covers 70% of the Earth’s surface but has absorbed more than 93% of the excess heat from greenhouse gas emissions since the 1970s. This great reservoir continuously exchanges heat, moisture, and carbon dioxide with the atmosphere, driving our weather patterns and influencing the slow, subtle changes in our climate.
The use of fossil fuels is the reason our oceans have been heating up and becoming more acidic, but offshore drilling takes the risks even further. When oil is extracted from the ocean floor, other chemicals like mercury, arsenic, and lead come up with it. Also, the seismic waves used to find oil harm aquatic mammals and disorient whales. In 2008, 100 whales had beached themselves as a result of ExxonMobil exploring for oil with these techniques. Furthermore, the infrastructure projects to transport the oil often create worse problems, eroding the coastline. These realities are another reason
Many marine scientists consider overfishing to be the worst impact humans are having on the oceans. The Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that over 70% of the world’s fish species have been entirely exploited or depleted. By capturing fish faster than they can reproduce, we are harming entire ecosystems that interact with those species, from the food they eat to the predators that eat them. These losses make the ecosystems more vulnerable to other disturbances, such as pollution. A complete overhaul of fishing policies, requiring global cooperation, is needed to achieve a sustainable system.Overfishing is having some serious impacts on our oceans. Not only does it work towards wiping out a species, but also the other species of marine animals that are dependent upon those fish for survival. It's been shown that overfishing can cause marine animals to starve, since we're taking food from their mouths in too large of numbers for them to be able to get their fill. It is also estimated that most seas already need long term fishing bans if certain species are to recover at all.
Nutrient and chemical pollution can occur easily in open-ocean operations when fish feed, excrement, and medication is released into the environment. Farmed fish accidentally released into wild populations can also have destructive effects, such as loss of native stocks, disease transmission, and damaging changes in habitat. Unfortunately, the biggest hindrance to overcoming the challenges of an industry that supplies nearly 50% of the world’s fish food supply is that it currently remains relatively unregulated .
6 Garbage Patches in our oceans. This one is the most obvious. It’s astounding how much of our trash finds its way into the ocean. Animals become easily entangled and trapped in our garbage, and it can destroy delicate sea life like coral and sponges. In addition, sea turtles and dolphins often mistake plastic bags for their favorite foods, jellyfish and squids, choking them or clogging their digestive system. If that’s not bad enough, hopefully the bigger-than-Texas trash vortex in the Pacific Ocean and its smaller cousin in the Atlantic will help serve as a wakeup call. One more depressing one before we move on to something fun and exciting. We certainly can't ignore a giant patch of plastic soup the size of Texas sitting smack dab in the middle of the Pacific ocean.
6) Dead Zones. Dead zones are areas where the sea floor has little to no dissolved oxygen. These areas are often found at the mouths of large rivers, and are caused primarily by fertilizers that are being carried in the runoff. Unfortunately, the lack of oxygen kills many creatures and destroys entire habitats.
Pollution is running rampant in the oceans but one of the scariest pollutants is mercury because, well, it ends up on the dinner table. The worst part is mercury levels in the oceans are predicted to rise .
Ghost fishing is an environmentally harmful issue caused when lost or discarded fishing gear continues to catch fish and other marine life. Often times, the traps trigger a chain-reaction problem when larger predators come to eat the smaller ones that have been ensnared, only to get tangled in the mess themselves.
Here are the seven biggest problems, plus some light at the end of the tunnel. 1. Overfishing Is Draining the Life From the Water.
The basic science behind acidification is that the ocean absorbs CO 2 through natural processes, but at the rate at which we're pumping it into the atmosphere through burning fossil fuels, the ocean's pH balance is dropping to the point where some life within the oceans are having trouble coping. 6
Overfishing is negatively impacting our oceans. It can cause the extinction of certain species while threatening the survivability of any predators that depend on those species as a source of food. 1 By depleting food sources in such large quantities, we leave less for others, to the point where some marine animals actually starve. 2 Reduction of fishing to ensure sustainable levels is necessary if at risk species are to recover at all.
Jaymi Heimbuch is a writer and photographer specializing in wildlife conservation. She is the author of The Ethiopian Wolf: Hope at the Edge of Extinction. The oceans are among the biggest resources for life on earth, but they're also our biggest dumping grounds. That kind of paradox could give anyone an identity crisis.
A focus on how to protect the coral reefs is important considering coral reefs support a huge amount of small sea life, which in turn supports both larger sea life and people, not only for immediate food needs but also economically.
According to NOAA, it is estimated that by the end of this century, surface levels of the oceans could have a pH of about 7.8 (in 2020 the pH level is 8.1). "The last time the ocean pH was this low was during the middle Miocene, 14-17 million years ago.
Ocean Dead Zones Are Everywhere, and Growing. Dead zones are swaths of ocean that don't support life due to hypoxia, or a lack of oxygen. Global warming is a prime suspect for what's behind the shifts in ocean behavior that cause dead zones.