Acabo de participar en la presentació de l'informe World Ocean Review. Es tracta d'un dels estudis més complerts publicats recentment (sinó el més complert) que aborda els problemes dels oceans des de múltiples angles, tots ells entrelligats: sistema climàtic, química oceànica, costes, polució, ecosistemes marins, pesca, energia, transport, coneixements mèdics, Llei del mar.

Escrit de manera extraordiàriament planera considero que es tracta d'un material de consum massiu que hauria de ser llegit i consultat per tota mena de professionals relacionats amb la legislació, la divulgació d'opinions, consultories, món científic, educació, comunicació, periodisme,...

Fins i tot la Comissària d'Afers Marins, Maria Damanaki, present a l'acte, s'ha compromès a fer-lo llegir a tot el seu equip.

Adjunto un extracte de la introducció, però el text sencer es pot trobar al lloc web oficial de World Ocean Review.

"Worldwide, the winter of 2010 was the warmest in the past 131 years. Global climate change has caused a gradual rise in the Earth’s average temperatures. In the coming years the rate of glacial melting will probably accelerate. Sea-level rise will become more rapid. Present calculations indicate that there will probably be a rise of at least 80 centimetres within this century, with as much as 180 centimetres being predicted for the worst-case scenario.

The immense water masses of the ocean act as a buffer, storing considerable amounts of carbon dioxide and heat from the atmosphere. Climatic changes therefore only gradually become noticeable. Scientists anticipate that if greenhouse gas emissions continue unchecked, the sea level could rise by as much as 5 metres by the year 2300. Most of the “mega-cities”, with populations greater than 10 million, are located on or near the coasts. It would require enormous sums of money to protect them, and presumably many of them will have to be abandoned. The ocean may be buffering the most severe consequences of climate change for now. But in the long run we can only hope to avoid these if we strictly curb greenhouse gas emissions today. Experts are concerned that hundreds of thousands of tonnes of methane hydrate could break down due to the warming of seawater – gas masses that are lying inertly in solid, frozen form in the sea floor sediments today. A portion of the methane, which is a powerful greenhouse gas, could then rise into the atmosphere and further accelerate the process of climate change – a vicious circle. (...)

Humans are destroying the marine environment not only through pollution, but also through greed. 80 million tonnes of fish with a market value of around 90 billion US dollars are caught every year. As a result, the fish stocks are now severely overfished or are completely depleted. "

(de la introducció, Nikolaus Gelpke and Martin Visbeck )