Oceans are increasingly bearing the brunt of global warming

THE WORLD’S oceans are getting warmer, stormier and more acidic. They are becoming less productive as the ecosystems within them collapse. Melting glaciers and ice sheets are causing sea levels to rise, increasing the risk of inundation and devastation to hundreds of millions of people living in coastal areas.

The latest special report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), on how the oceans and frozen regions of the planet are changing in response to the rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, is a predictably grim read. The final text, pored and argued over by scores of scientists and policymakers from 36 countries over the course of marathon meetings in the past week in Monaco, makes reference to almost 7,000 relevant scientific studies.

For decades, the oceans have provided a buffer against the full impact of a warming planet. Since 1970, says the report, they have soaked up more than 90% of the excess heat...