7 ms·
[2010], here's the paper referenced in the article: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature09268 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature09268 I knew we had fucke
by pygy_ 7y ago
[2010], here's the paper referenced in the article: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature09268 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature09268
I knew we had fucked up the oceans with plastics and overfishing, but I didn't know that phytoplankton was down as well, at such a scale. Per TFA, it provided 50% of the Earth's photosynthesis (in 2010). If it kept on dwindling that fast, that share is even lower now (down ~45%, with a half-life of 81 years, assuming the decline was constant between 1950 and 2010). This is also freaky knowing that it is the base of the food chain in the oceans...
I don't have any idea of the amount of oxygen that's cycled each year vs the total amount in the atmosphere... I suppose there's no immediate danger on that end, even if it were to drop to an even lower point before recovering, otherwise we'd have heard of this more often...
- Gibbon1 7y agoI keep coming back to the idea that over fishing --> pulling micro nutrients from the ocean --> plankton collapse.
- chiefalchemist 7y agoWe take the good stuff out (i.e., fish) and dump garbage and pollutants back in. What could go wrong? Humans fully deserve the next extinction event.
- bamboozled 7y agoYeah right, children, innocents and wildlife deserve an extinction event. Sorry but what a silly idea that is.
- chiefalchemist 7y agoOdd and ironic that you're accusing me of neglecting children, innocents and wildlife. I'm not making the news. I'm only reporting it. Why not turn your anger and disgust on those that deserve it. That's not me.
- creddit 7y agoI don’t think there’s any world in which “the news” is opinion about who deserves what. That’s opinion. “The news” is fact based. Your statement was opinion based and your reaction comically lacking in self awareness.
- _jahh 7y agowildlife will do very well, maybe not the charismatic stuff, but overall.
- jbay808 7y agoYeah, not the big animals, but the little ones -- like plankton for example. ... Oh wait.
- incompatible 7y agoAnaerobic bacteria perhaps? Admittedly not counted as animals.
- dang 7y agoPlease don't break the site guidelines by replying to flamebait and getting involved in flamewars. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- dang 7y agoPlease don't break the site guidelines by posting flamebait and getting involved in flamewars. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- hanniabu 7y agoNot only that, but the oceans are already at capacity with CO2 absorption and now with the plankton collapse the oxygenation of the ocean is also being reduced. The entire ocean ecosystem is going to suffocate, species after species.
- pvaldes 7y agoNot necessarily. First of all ocean is not a continuous; is layered. Water masses sink and travel. I bet that we could find artic water (rich in oxigen) in the african coast for example. Oxygen content is strongly related with salinity and temperature.
- pvaldes 7y agoPlankton is collapsing all the time in fact. Then they recover extremely fast.
- koboll 7y agoThe really scary part is that phytoplankton produce 50-85% of the oxygen on Earth. Unfortunately, steadily declining populations of oceanic microorganisms don't pack the same kind of viral social media star power Brazilian forest fires do.
- mikro2nd 7y agoPlastics and overfishing are the least of our worries (though not to be dismissed) -- we know how to stop those (though we might find the means to do so unpalatable). The elephant in the room (whale in the fish pond?) is ocean acidification which will continue to increase for at least a century or so even if we stop using any and all fossil fuels immediately (and how likely does that look?)
- titzer 7y agoAnything that causes mass die-offs that lead to loss of biodiversity is a cause for major concern. The system can be forced to crash multiple different ways. Currently it looks like the warm water heat waves have been killing corals en masse, which leads to collapse of shallow-water ecosystems, which is pancaking everything else. But plastics and overfishing are body blows being delivered at the same time as jabs and uppercuts. Make no mistake, everything is interconnected. The recent uptick in gray whales dying off with signs that look like starvation is absolutely connected to the loss of coral reefs worldwide. We need an all-front defense of the oceans, and I don't think we should pick winners or ignore major, major problems as somehow "solved" in our imaginations.