Note: Single-source report; awaiting corroboration.
A major scientific effort involving about 550 experts from 86 countries has produced the 1,600-page World Ocean Assessment, detailing multiple threats to the ocean and its crucial importance to humanity and the planet. The ocean stabilizes the climate by absorbing excess heat and greenhouse gases, maintains food supplies, and supports global trade, tourism, jobs, and health through various ecosystem services.
The assessment notes that human activities are increasingly concentrated in coastal regions, with 37 percent of the global population living within 100 km of the shore as of 2024. This concentration has led to greater resource extraction, infrastructure development, waste discharge, and habitat degradation. Offshore developments such as wind farms, oil infrastructure, and seabed cables are also increasing, impacting habitats farther from the coast.
Climate change is significantly transforming ocean conditions. For example, the rate of sea level rise more than doubled from up to 1.9 mm/year before 2015 to 4.3 mm/year in 2023, partly due to melting ice caps and thermal expansion. Arctic temperatures are rising at four times the global average, dramatically impacting marine ecosystems and human communities.
Oxygen-depleted hypoxic zones now cover 4.5 million square kilometers, creating areas where most marine species cannot survive. Additionally, 16 percent of the total rise in ocean temperatures since 1955 has occurred since 2018, further stressing marine life. As a result, biodiversity across almost every marine habitat is in decline, due to extensive ecological pressures.
The report underscores the complex, interconnected challenges facing the ocean and highlights the urgent need for informed protection and sustainable management to safeguard both ocean health and humanity's future.