“How Our Great Oceans Meet”

I attended last week’s RGS lecture in which Dr. David Hydes spoke on the issue titled “How Our Great Oceans Meet”. Dr. David Hydes is a marine chemist who has over 30 years experience in environmental chemistry and oceanography. He is one of the first scientists to realize climate change. Currently, he works with shipping companies carrying out various scientific researches.

Dr. Hydes compared the ocean to a living body. At the natural biological level, respiration carried out by different organisms creates carbon dioxide. This gas is then recycled by plant organisms like phytoplankton through the process of photosynthesis. The more biologically active the ocean is, the more carbon dioxide could be removed and that is how the ocean system circulates itself. However, problem arises as more and more carbon dioxide is emitted into the ocean due to pollution and urbanization. The excess of the carbon dioxide cannot be reduced easily. In fact, it takes the gas as long as over 1000 years to move through the system. In addition, the carbon dioxide release contributes to the acidification of the ocean. This affects the entire marine system and alters the nature of the ocean.

On the other hand, Dr. Hydes compared the Ocean Conveyor Belt to the arteries and veins of a body. The Conveyor is the global flow of sea current. Diagram below illustrates the flow of warm water and cold water in our ocean. As the icebergs in the Arctic are melting faster and faster due to global warming, it changes the temperature of the ocean. Interestingly enough, while most parts of the world are experiencing a raise of temperature under the effects of global “warming”, the Northwest European countries and the Caribbean will experience colder weather due to the melting icebergs. The rapid melting of icebergs in the Polar Regions presently are signs of the occurrence.

After listening to Dr. Hydes, it consolidated some of my thoughts about the effects of global warming. The combination of acidification of the ocean and melting of icebergs are definitely bringing destructive impacts to our lives and the earth as a whole. Further researches on David Suzuki Foundation’s Abrupt Climate Change report have shown that this climate change “could be disastrous for eastern North America and western Europe. Average temperatures could plunge by 5 degrees C - for comparison, this is about the same difference as between the global average temperature today and during the last Ice Age…The resulting colder, snowier winters would require new infrastructure, damage crops and shorten the growing season. The costs associated with such a change would be enormous.” The report suggests that “reducing the use of fossil fuels is the only strategy available to reduce the risk of catastrophic climate surprises”.

Yet, some scientists like James Lovelock believe that it is already too late for us human beings to alter the inevitable catastrophe. He thinks that it might have helped the situation if certain sustainable work was carried out 40 years ago. During the lecture, Dr. Hydes did not point out specific practical methods to protect the ocean and the earth as a whole. As hopeless as it might sound, I somehow think that global warming is really on its way to alter our world’s climate drastically! Is Lovelock actually correct that we could do nothing much to amend such devastation?