BRUSSELS (AP) — Warning: The warming of the world's oceans can cause serious illness and may cost millions of euros (dollars) in health care. That is the alarm sounded in a paper released online Tuesday on the eve of a two-day conference in Brussels.
The 200-page paper is a synthesis of the findings of more than 100 projects funded by the European Union since 1998. It was produced by Project CLAMER, a collaboration of 17 European marine institutes.
The paper says the rising temperature of ocean water is causing a proliferation of the Vibrio genus of bacteria, which can cause food poisoning, serious gastroenteritis, septicemia and cholera.
"Millions of euros in health costs may result from human consumption of contaminated seafood, ingestion of waterborne pathogens, and, to a lesser degree, though direct occupational or recreational exposure to marine disease," says the paper. "Climatic conditions are playing an increasingly important role in the transmission of these diseases."
The paper also describes a host of other effects of ocean warming, both documented and forecast, including melting ice, rising sea levels, coastal erosion, increased storm intensity and frequency, along with chemical changes in the sea itself, including acidification and deoxygenation.
"What was striking to me was the enormous pile of evidence that things are already happening," Katja Philippart, a marine scientist at the Royal Netherlands Institute of Sea Research who was involved in putting the study together, told The Associated Press. "There is so much happening already. We are just in the midst of it."
It is not only the range of changes that has scientists concerned, but the speed of them.
"The biggest surprise to me is the fact that things are changing in the ocean much more rapidly than we thought was possible," said Carlo Heip, who is director of the same institute in the Netherlands.
In just a few decades, he said, the fish population of the North Sea has changed significantly, with larger species moving toward the arctic and smaller ones taking their place.
He said the concentration of Vibrio genus of bacteria has been observed since the 1960s. "When the temperature in the North Sea began to increase at the end of the 80s, the Vibrios began to increase. One of those Vibrios is the cholera species."
In the Baltic region in 2006, far more people got gastroenteritis than usual, Heip said. But he acknowledged that is anecdotal evidence only, and the extent of the danger is unclear.
Philippart said some of the effects could even themselves contribute to global warming.
The greater acidification of the ocean might mean that algae would be able to capture less carbon dioxide, she said. "Then there will be a further increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, leading to greater warming."
Project CLAMER is holding a conference in Brussels on Wednesday and Thursday.
_____
Don Melvin can be reached at twitter.com/Don_Melvin Comments:
JP Yep, some of it is Cyanobacteria, otherwise known as Blue-Green algae. Very poisonous but they also like carbon dioxide. There are just no winners in climate change so why does humanity insist on proceeding down this road of unknown consequences?
Joseph Joseph Man is not the master of this planet. Viruses and Bacteria are, then the insects. All er ever done was wreck the planet. Manmade drought and famine by very uneducated people. Pollution by the educated greedy, pollution by us everyday types and don't care either. take a good look at the earth, she is full of our poison. as some scientist have stated, we are our worse enemy. it is us who will force our extinction.
TheCynic Not a problem. Obama will give a speech and it will be OK.
Ragyp Simple. We know the "professionals" you speak of, get their paychecks for bleating what the Leftists want them to bleat. We know that planets without humans are also warming, so there is no reason to think that our trivial addition to a trivial greenhouse gas is "driving" the climate. We know that we steer the climate like that bug on your windshield is steering your car.
Isn't it funny.. I've been listening to disaster propaganda all my life, everything from cyclamates to mail-order weapons to soapsuds to Alar to DMSO... and not *once*, not *once* have I heard of a disaster whose cure involved *more* freedom and *less* government. Gee, what are the odds... Lefties have yelled "wolf" so often that if a real disaster ever did come along, we would have to wait for real scientists to verify it. You people dug this hole in your credibility, you worry about fixing it.
Sweet According to conservatives in DC god can create new oceans in 7 days and 7 nights! And evolution is incomplete according to Perry??
JOHNd Both the oceans and atmosphere are warming, anyone can look up the records at NOAA or the National Climatic Data Center. But when any study like this one appears, to describe changes that might be expected as a consequence of that warming, the confident and angry know-nothings come out in droves, to say scientists are “crying wolf”, and to repeat nonsense they've “learned” at Fox news. What is most depressing to me, is that, by inoculating their viewers with disinformation and disregard for the actual findings of scientists, they are so successful in their actual goal, which is to prevent discussion or agreement on what if any steps could be taken to prevent or to mitigate the probable effects of the warming of the planet that we are now causing.