Although scientists agree on the primordial role of the oceans in climate regulation, they remain largely neglected by policymakers. The Glasgow appointment is an opportunity to launch a solemn call to “ocean action”, without knowing whether decisions will follow.
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Analysis. The ocean is not an extent of water that would be content with occupying 71% of the surface of the planet. By its biological, chemical, physical dynamics, by its very traffic, it is actually a kind of basic machine room that allows, from the beginning, life on earth. And since human activities have flown greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the atmosphere, this fantastic carbon pump operates as a gigantic regulator that has so far slowed down the pace of change climate and therefore the violence of its impacts. Without its interactions with the atmosphere, the heat would already be untenable around the globe. The ocean absorbs more than 90% of the energy surplus due to the increased concentration of anthropogenic and 30% carbon emitted each year by humans. Since 1870, he has sequestered 155 billion tonnes.
But until when can it fulfill this role? This question – in short, that of the resilience of the ocean – Tarabuste the scientists but has not yet really distributed among the political decision-makers. At least it is what the weak place reserved for the conference on climate change, which stands until November 12 in Glasgow, Scotland. Friday, November 5, is scheduled a round table on “blue finance”, followed by a solemn call to “ocean action” launched at the ministerial level to encourage “the global community to take ambitious measures for health. oceans “.
The sequence can be seen as a minimum or as a relative progress. Because the global ocean did not appear on the COP program before that of Paris, in 2015. His timid appearance of then gave rise to the publication, four years later, the special report prepared by the intergovernmental group of experts on The evolution of the climate (IPCC) on ” The ocean and the cryosphere in the context of climate change “. Despite the striking extent of advertised disasters, few decisions have ensued.
The real “lung” of the planet
Yet the first carbon well of the planet, it is his, the ocean. It is always more in the form of dissolved gases in water and to a lesser extent of carbonates and organic matter which it retains in its deep layers for a few millennia. The more the human activities affect the state of the planet, the more it inflates under the effect of the heat it is ingenuries and the ice cream. The more he is also helping. So the complex balance of this fantastic pump can one day reach a failover point?
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