‘We’re all in big trouble’: Climate panel sees a dire future

NEW YORK (AP) — Earth is in more hot water than ever before, and so are we, an expert United Nations climate panel warned in a grim new report Wednesday.

Sea levels are rising at an ever-faster rate as ice and snow shrink, and oceans are getting more acidic and losing oxygen, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said in a report issued as world leaders met at the United Nations.

It warned that if steps aren’t taken to reduce emissions and slow global warming, seas will rise three feet by the end of the century, with many fewer fish, less snow and ice, stronger and wetter hurricanes and other, nastier weather systems.

“The oceans and the icy parts of the world are in big trouble, and that means we’re all in big trouble, too,” said one of the report’s lead authors, Michael Oppenheimer, professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton University. “The changes are accelerating.”

The dire effects will be felt on both land and sea, harming people, plants, animals, food, societies, infrastructure and the global economy. In fact, the international team of scientists projected for the first time that some island nations will probably become uninhabitable.

The oceans absorb more than 90% of the excess heat from carbon pollution in the air, as well as much of the carbon dioxide itself. Earth’s snow and ice, called the cryosphere, are also being eroded.

“The world’s oceans and cryosphere have been taking the heat for climate change for decades. The consequences for nature and humanity are sweeping and severe,” said Ko Barrett, vice chair of the IPCC and a deputy assistant administrator for research at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

In Box

The report found:

— Seas are now rising at one-seventh of an inch (3.66 millimeters) a year, which is 2.5 times faster than the rate from 1900 to 1990.

— The world’s oceans have already lost one per cent to three per cent of the oxygen in their upper levels since 1970 and will lose more as warming continues.

—From 2006 to 2015, the ice melting from Greenland, Antarctica and the world’s mountain glaciers has accelerated. They are now losing 720 billion tons (653 billion metric tons) of ice a year.

—Arctic June snow cover has shrunk more than half since 1967, down nearly 1 million square miles (2.5 million square kilometers).

—Arctic sea ice in September, the annual low point, is down almost 13 per cent per decade since 1979. This year’s low, reported Monday, tied for the second-lowest on record.

—Marine animals are likely to decrease 15 per cent, and catches by fisheries in general are expected to decline 21 per cent to 24 per cent by the end of century because of climate change.