The Planet’s Big Blue Machine: Why the Ocean Engine Matters. The ocean is an enormous engine, turning heat energy into motion, says physicist Helen Czerski. But human activity is threatening that machine — depriving the seas of oxygen, increasing stratification, and potentially changing the currents that influence global weather. Pnet dominated by oceans and billowing with clouds. Since then, says British oceanographer and physicist Helen Czerski, scientists have been documenting how global warming is changing the seas in ways that are transforming weather patterns worldwide and, in some cases, imperiling the agricultural systems upon which humanity depends.In her new book, The Blue Machine: How the Ocean Works, Czerski — a frequent science presenter on the BBC — offers a lyrical primer on the natural forces that power the global ocean and how human activities are putting some of these processes at risk. While reporting on the ocean often focuses on the well-known scourges of plastic, chemical pollution, and overfishing, Czerski examines our impacts on the physics of the ocean system, which she describes as a gigantic and highly complex engine. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Czerski warned that critical ocean currentsmay slow down or change course as surface waters continue to warm. Oxygen levels in the sea have been declining, she said, potentially turning some parts of the sea into biological deserts. However, she remains skeptical of ambitious ocean geoengineering schemes designed to mitigate the effects of climate change, which she said risk further destabilizing a natural system that we imperfectly understand. Yale Environment 360: The oceans are vast. But even people who are concerned about the environment rarely focus on them. You’ve gone so far as to say that we just “don’t see the ocean.” What do you mean by that?.....read on https://www.wri.org/
The Planet’s Big Blue Machine: Why the Ocean Engine Matters.
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- Written by: Glenn and Rick
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