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  Yahoo News 9 Nov 06
Scientists say millions could flee rising seas
By Daniel Wallis

Yahoo News 10 Nov 06
Expert says oceans are turning acidic
By ANTHONY MITCHELL, Associated Press Writer

Yahoo News 9 Nov 06
Warming threat to earth's seas, marine life endangers mankind: study
by Lucie Peytermann

NAIROBI (AFP) - Urgent and resolute measures must be taken to arrest rising global temperatures that increasingly threaten the delicate balance of marine ecosystems and human lives, scientists have warned.

In a study released on the sidelines of a key UN climate conference in the Kenyan capital on Thursday, they said climatic changes had sparked rapid rises in sea levels, temperatures and acidity that pose severe dangers to humanity.

"Human activities are unleashing processes of change in the oceans that are without precedent in the past several million years," said the study "The Future of Oceans -- Warming Up, Rising High, Turning Sour."

"Ambitious climate protection measures are needed to limit the consequences of warming, acidification and sea-level rise for the marine environment and human society," said the report from the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU).

Unlike their terrestrial counterparts, marine ecosystems are far more sensitive to climatic changes that may, for instance, spark shifts in sealife populations, alter food webs and species composition, it said.

Most of the world's reefs -- habitats for fish on which human depend -- may be destroyed within the next 30 to 50 years because many corals cannot survive in higher water temperatures, it added. Thus, the survival of the fisheries sector is threatened with nefarious economic ramifications, it said.

The problem "is probably one of the most severe impacts of global warming on human beings," Stefan Rahmstorf, a physics professor and a member of WBGU, told reporters at a news conference.

Key to mitigating the damage is limiting the rate of temperature change to a maximum of 0.2 degrees Celsius and the near-surface air temperature to a maximum of two degrees.

Already, scientists say global temperatures have risen by 0.7 degrees since 1900, due to greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels mainly by industrialised countries.

Other steps to ease the looming crisis would be dedicating 20 to 30 percent of sea and ocean ecosystems to conservation, particularly reefs that provide coastal protection and are a source of protein, and halting some fishing subsidies, according to the report.

"The publicly subsidised overfishing of the oceans should be terminated, not least in order to strengthen the resilience of fish stocks to the impacts of climate change," it said.

It also called for improved knowledge of the relation between interference with marine life, biological diversity and the resilience of marine ecosystems.

"There is need to link nature conservation with coastal protection," said the study, released as some 6,000 participants from 189 countries entered the fourth day of talks seeking ways of limiting global carbon emissions.

Average global sea-level rise stood at between 1.5 and 2.0 centimetres per decade throughout the 20th century, according to the study that also says satellite measurements show the rate hit three centimetres in the past decade.

"If warming continues, there is further acceleration of sea-level rise," it said.

And Rahmstorf also warned that further temperature increases risk touching off stronger hurricanes in the future. "If global warming continues, we will see stronger hurricanes in the future," Rahmstorf said.

Yahoo News 10 Nov 06
Expert says oceans are turning acidic
By ANTHONY MITCHELL, Associated Press Writer

NAIROBI, Kenya - The world's oceans are becoming more acidic, which poses a threat to sea life and Earth's fragile food chain, a climate expert said Thursday.

Oceans have already absorbed a third of the world's emissions of carbon dioxide, one of the heat-trapping gases blamed for global warming, leading to acidification that prevents vital sea life from forming properly.

"The oceans are rapidly changing," said professor Stefan Rahmstorf on the sidelines of a U.N. conference on climate change that has drawn delegates from more than 100 countries to Kenya.

"Ocean acidification is a major threat to marine organisms." Fish stocks and the world's coral reefs could also be hit while acidification risks "fundamentally altering" the food chain, he said.

In a study titled "The Future Oceans--Warming Up, Rising High, Turning Sour," Rahmstorf and eight other scientists warned that the world is witnessing, on a global scale, problems similar to the acid rain phenomenon of the 1970s and 1980s.

Rahmstorf, the head of Germany's Potsdam Institute for Research into Climatic Effects, says more research is urgently needed to assess the impact of ocean acidification.

David Santillo, a senior scientist at Greenpeace's Research Laboratories in Exeter, Britain, said it had come as a shock to scientists that the oceans are turning acidic because of carbon dioxide emissions.

"The knock on effect for humans is that some of these marine resources that we rely on may not be available in the future," the marine biologist, who was not involved in Rahmstorf's study, told The Associated Press by telephone.

Rahmstorf also reiterated warnings of rising sea levels caused by global warming, saying that in 70 years, temperature increases will lead more frequent storms with 200 million people threatened by floods.

Scientists blame the past century's one-degree rise in average global temperatures at least in part for the accumulation of carbon dioxide, methane and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere--byproducts of power plants, automobiles and other fossil fuel burners.

The 1997 Kyoto accord requires 35 industrialized countries to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. The Kyoto countries meeting in Nairobi are continuing talks on what kind of emissions targets and timetables should follow 2012.

Yahoo News 9 Nov 06
Scientists say millions could flee rising seas
By Daniel Wallis

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Nations must make plans to help tens of millions of "sea level refugees" if climate change continues to ravage the world's oceans, German researchers said on Thursday.

Waters are rising and warming, increasing the destructive power of storms, they said, and seas are becoming more acidic, threatening to throw entire food chains into chaos.

"In the long run, sea level rises are going to be the most severe impact of global warming on human society," said Professor Stefan Rahmstorf, presenting a report by German scientists at a major United Nations climate change meeting.

Warming could melt ice sheets and raise water levels, and the report said nations should already be considering making a "managed retreat" from the most endangered areas, including low-lying island states, parts of Bangladesh or even the U.S. state of Florida.

A report by international scientists who advise the U.N. has predicted a sea level rise of up to 88 cm between 1990 and 2100.

The situation was worsened, the German team said on Thursday, by the increasing frequency of extreme storms whipped up by warming sea surface temperatures -- meaning many would flee coastal areas hit by hurricanes.

Many of the world's biggest cities, from Tokyo to Buenos Aires, are by the coast. Some rich nations might be able to build ever higher dikes, such as in the Netherlands, but poor nations were destined to be swamped.

The low-lying Pacific island nation of Tuvalu has already agreed a deal for New Zealand to take about half its 10,000 people to work in agriculture if it becomes swamped by rising sea levels.

HURRICANE ENERGY

Rahmstorf said their data did not conclusively prove warmer seas created more storms, but that there was a clear link between rising temperatures and hurricanes' power.

"Since 1980 we've seen a strong rise up to unprecedented levels of hurricane energy now in the Atlantic," he said.

Some 189 nations are meeting in Kenya to explore options for a global deal to combat climate change, with most focusing on cutting the amount of carbon dioxide pumped into the air by industry and modern lifestyles.

The report's authors, the German Advisory Council on Global Change, said about a third of that CO2 was being absorbed by the world's oceans, making them more acidic.

If not checked, it said, that would have profound effects on marine organisms -- hindering everything from tiny shrimps to lobsters from forming their calcite shells -- with disastrous results for ocean food chains, and on human communities depending on sea life to survive.

Coral reefs that attract fish and protect coasts from storms and erosion are also threatened by acidity, and CO2 emissions meant they could all be dead by 2065, Rahmstorf said.

"Acidity is causing a major threat to coral reefs, on top of the bleaching effect that comes with warming," he said.

Reefs get bleached when warm water forces out tiny algae living in them, giving reefs nutrients and their vivid colors. Without algae, corals whiten and eventually die.
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