This last chapter will review the strange and fickle (geologic) times we live in and the future of our oceans. In the next century climate changeClimate change will cause the demise of coral reefs, warmer and more acidic oceans, the poleward migration of species, melting of ice sheetsIce sheet and thus at least 3 m (10 ft) of sea level riseSea level rise. There is no such thing as “sustainable growth” in a finite ocean and so we simply must choose which future we want to have for our civilisation and our ocean. Further into the future we can predict a new ice ageIce age beginning after around 10,000 years. Even further into the future plate tectonicsPlate tectonics predicts a super-continent “Pangaea Proxima”Pangaea Proxima will be formed in a few hundreds of million years. The oceans will evaporate when the sun becomes a “red giant” in around one billion years. The oceans remain largely unexplored and many mysteries remain for future generations to solve.

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An Ocean of Mysteries

  • Peter Townsend Harris

摘要

This last chapter will review the strange and fickle (geologic) times we live in and the future of our oceans. In the next century climate changeClimate change will cause the demise of coral reefs, warmer and more acidic oceans, the poleward migration of species, melting of ice sheetsIce sheet and thus at least 3 m (10 ft) of sea level riseSea level rise. There is no such thing as “sustainable growth” in a finite ocean and so we simply must choose which future we want to have for our civilisation and our ocean. Further into the future we can predict a new ice ageIce age beginning after around 10,000 years. Even further into the future plate tectonicsPlate tectonics predicts a super-continent “Pangaea Proxima”Pangaea Proxima will be formed in a few hundreds of million years. The oceans will evaporate when the sun becomes a “red giant” in around one billion years. The oceans remain largely unexplored and many mysteries remain for future generations to solve.