When: Wednesday, 18 January 2023, 17:00
Where: online via zoom
Lecturer: Lisa Levin (Scripps Institution of Oceanography)
Chair: Ina Tessnow-von Wysocki (University of Vienna)
Discussant: Alice Vadrot (University of Vienna)
If you want to participate, please contact maripoldata.erc@univie.ac.at. You will then receive the zoom link to join the event.
The deep ocean (>200 m) plays a critical role in climate mitigation, removing heat and CO2 from the atmosphere. This function also causes warming, acidification, deoxygenation and changing food supply in deep waters. These stressors interact with each other and with other ocean parameters such as light and nutrients to modify ocean life. The consequences for deep-sea marine ecosystems and their ecological functions and services are likely to be substantial. These may include redistribution and habitat compression of species including some with commercial value or trophic significance, loss of habitat and support values via effects on foundation species, changes in biodiversity, altered food web structure and more. Proposed ocean-based climate interventions may compound or exacerbate these threats. These changes will also intersect with physical, chemical and biological disturbance imposed by increasingly deeper extraction of oil and gas, living resources and seabed minerals, affecting carbon services, ocean resilience and sustainability. I will discuss critical scientific knowledge required for maintaining ocean sustainability and how these challenges are treated (or not) in global assessments. Major opportunities for mainstreaming climate resilience and carbon conservation in ocean management and international policy instruments will be highlighted.
