The deep ocean under climate change
Abstract
The deep ocean absorbs vast amounts of heat and carbon dioxide, providing a critical buffer to climate change but exposing vulnerable ecosystems to combined stresses of warming, ocean acidification, deoxygenation, and altered food inputs. Resulting changes may threaten biodiversity and compromise key ocean services that maintain a healthy planet and human livelihoods. There exist large gaps in understanding of the physical and ecological feedbacks that will occur. Explicit recognition of deep-ocean climate mitigation and inclusion in adaptation planning by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) could help to expand deep-ocean research and observation and to protect the integrity and functions of deep-ocean ecosystems.
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Science
Volume 350 | Issue 6262
13 November 2015
13 November 2015
Copyright
Copyright © 2015, American Association for the Advancement of Science.
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Published in print: 13 November 2015
Acknowledgments
Ideas were developed for Our Common Future Under Climate Change (Paris 2015) and through many discussions with colleagues. Support was provided to L.A.L. by NSF (EAR 1324095) and through the Deep-Ocean Stewardship Initiative by J. M. Kaplan Fund and to N.L.B. by UPMC, CNRS, and Fondation Total (chair “Biodiversity, extreme marine environments and global change”). L.A.L. and N.L.B. are members of the scientific committee of the Ocean and Climate Platform.
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