Talk:Effects of climate change on oceans

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Ocean acidification very short
I noticed that the Ocean Acidification section of this page was very short, and I would like to add some detail on it. I would like to add details on the immediate effects of ocean acidification as well as the long term effects. These effects include what happens to smaller ocean organisms and larger ocean dwellers, and the resulting chain of events that could affect whole food chains and ecosystems as well as threaten the functioning of human society. Subsection: Ocean Acidification Effects of ocean acidification would first hit creatures such as small crustaceans. The increased amount of hydrogen ions takes away from the production of calcium carbonate. This is important because calcium carbonate is a compound that’s necessary for zooplankton to construct shells, so not only are they zooplankton running out shell building elements, but the increased acidity can dissolve their shells as well putting entire food chains at risk as many fish depend on these zooplankton as a food source. The effects of Ocean Acidification can also be seen on coral, and other animals that require calcium carbonates to build their skeletons or shells. An effect called coral bleaching is the result of increased CO2 in the oceans, and this can be seen on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, where ocean acidification’s effects are already taking place. The acidity can dissolve an organism’s shell or make it difficult for an organism to construct and keep a shell in order to grow and thrive, threatening whole ecosystems and food chains. --BriMcC16 (talk) 16:42, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
 * I've added a bit to this section, after moving it from the article on global warming.EMsmile (talk) 02:51, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

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Oxygen depletion

 * I've added a bit to this section, after moving it from the article on global warming. Am suprised there was no information on this already. Or perhaps it is controversial? EMsmile (talk) 02:51, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

Just a little suggestion
Brittany3000 (talk) 01:05, 4 October 2019 (UTC)How can the article be improved? Maybe add more information in the Oxygen Depletion section so it feels more complete.

Adding on to ocean acidification
I have been reading a lot of articles about the effects ocean acidification has on our oceans. This article does a great job of describing what ocean acidification is and the effects it has on calcifying organisms and how that can then effect the environment as a whole. I have been looking into articles that talk about how ocean acidification can have effects on the olfactory systems of marine fish as well, which then has negative consequences. I added on internal effects of ocean acidification on marine life after what has already been said about the effects it has externally on marine life. I have read articles about studies that have tried to understand how this could have negative effects. In the experiment that focuses on smaller marine fish larvae (orange clownfish), the scientists that conducted the experiment reared clownfish in three opposing pH levels: control (pH 8.15), a predicted pH for the next century (pH 7.8), and a pH predicted for even further into 2100 (pH 7.6). The results showed drastic differences from the pH of 8.15 and the pH of 7.8. The results for the pH of 7.6 were not recorded because the larvae reared in this pH had no reaction to any cues that were presented. I added a section describing this process and the experiment under the ‘Ocean Acidification’ section right before the paragraph that begins to talk about the steps that can be taken to combat these negative effects. I think this is a nice transition into the next section that talks solely about marine life.Kate Caputo (talk) 21:51, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Global Issue Suggestion
Global warming not only affected the the planets when it comes for forest fires or overall global heat, but it also affects the temperature of the oceans water. As the temperature of our planet increase, the ocean temperature does as well, becomes this a big issue due to the change in it's balance. The rising of the oceans temperature will endanger the marine life and the ecosystem that allows them to reproduce and live.
 * what exactly is the suggestion for change? EMsmile (talk) 08:16, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Using excerpts more?
I think an article such as this, which pulls together other topics under a common theme (effects of climate change), should use the excerpt function more. For example, the content under "ocean acidification" should probably be merged to ocean acidification and then replaced with an excerpt. Similarly for sea level rise for which there is a dedicated article, so we don't need to repeat the same content here in other words. This means the content would later only have to be updated in one place and not in two. If anyone is not yet familiar with the concept of excerpts, see here for example where I have used it a few times: Ocean. EMsmile (talk) 08:20, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Good idea; If I were spending as much time doing Wiki as I used to, I would master that function and advocate for its use too.  Thanks. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:32, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
 * PS Please consider advocating this approach in general at the project page . NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:34, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your reply. I love that function. I discovered it about 6 months ago, when I saw user:sadads using it. We have written about it here on the WikiProject Climate Change page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Climate_change/Style_guide#Using_excerpts . But some people don't like to use it, and it's not yet very commonly used. For climate change articles it's ideal though as the data changes so quickly. The main criticism seems to be "don't use it for WP:FA articles (nor for WP:GA articles?) because people who are watching the FA article won't get notified when something is changed in the transcribed article. - But the way, the excerpt function is super easy to use. Let's say you want to transcribe the first three paragraphs of the lead of ocean acidification, but not the lead's image, to a section on "ocean acidification" within Effects of climate change on oceans. Then all you have to do is to put at the right place within the article Effects of climate change on oceans this command while using source editor
 * . I use it a lot and in the process I tend to improve the leads of the sub-articles so that the excerpt gets better. EMsmile (talk) 13:08, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Ha ha! Just goes to show that I've been away, glad to hear ProCC has already been talking about it.  Long journey, small steps and all that NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:40, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I've added two excerpts now, one for ocean acidification and one for Ocean deoxygenation. More excerpts and tidying up to come. EMsmile (talk) 04:49, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

Merge Effects of climate change on marine mammals into this article
I propose to merge Effects of climate change on marine mammals into this article. I see lots of overlap of overlap and outdated information, which will be easier to update in just one article instead of two. See also discussion on talk page of effects of climate change. EMsmile (talk) 03:40, 25 October 2021 (UTC)


 * Support Yes it is a bit weird that that the acidification section of that article talks about corals, mussels and oysters without explaining the relevance to mammals - for example will the acidification lead to lack of food for dolphins. Then later on it says "As warmer waters lead to a decrease in dolphin prey" without mentioning acidification. Chidgk1 (talk) 11:51, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

I have closed the other 2 discussions as I got confused. So if you are still opposed I could close this as "no consensus". Or has convinced you now? Chidgk1 (talk) 14:51, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I think we've made good experiences with such mergers lately (shrinking down the myriad of "effects of climate change on XX" articles). So I would still favour merging this one as well. EMsmile (talk) 16:09, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

I've now copied some arguments for and against from the other talk page:
 * After having a good look at the article, it seems well-maintained. It sufficiently specific that high overlap isn't much of a worry either. I now think it should not be merged. Femke (talk) 11:43, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
 * To me it looks like at least the sections on ocean warming and ocean acidification are a repetition of what's elsewhere (especially the part on ocean acidification). Also I am finding the structure rather strange, as everything comes under "potential effects" even though the article's title is also "effects of...". Also under "species impacted" it lists only 2 species (polar bears and dolphins). Seems arbitrary to me.

What would be the advantage of keeping it separately from effects of climate change on oceans? EMsmile (talk) 12:39, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
 * 1Potential effects
 * 1.1Ocean warming
 * 1.2Primary productivity
 * 1.3Ocean acidification
 * 1.4Sea ice changes
 * 1.5Hypoxia
 * 1.6Species impacted
 * 1.6.1Polar bears
 * 1.6.2Dolphins
 * Coming back to this discussion from 6 months ago. I would like to go ahead with the merger, are there any objections?, ? See my arguments above. EMsmile (talk) 10:10, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I suspect that there would be enough for a standalone article, and that the detail involved would be too much for a well-developed version of this article. The issue is that both articles are poor. If there is a merge, it should be without prejudice for some point in the future when someone gets to grips with this article. CMD (talk) 15:07, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree, that's a good way forward. Merge now but keep an open mind regarding a possible spin-off article later (when we have more Wikipedia editors willing to work on climate change topics...) EMsmile (talk) 18:37, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I've done the merger now. A bit more work is required to streamline it and to take out repetition. EMsmile (talk) 14:23, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Restructure and move content?
I feel that most of this article's content should also be merged to effects of climate change, so that the article reverts to becoming a quick overview article, mainly consisting of excerpts from other articles. Specifically, I am wondering where the bulk of the content about ocean currents (and their possible changes) should reside. I think it should be in effects of climate change, and then just an excerpt be used from there. I am even inclined to say that this article should perhaps be entirely merged into effects of climate change. Having all those "effects of climate change on XX" articles just creates too much work in maintenance, especially when they deal with physical phenomena which are all interlinked, not societal ones. EMsmile (talk) 09:41, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

Bringing in content from effects of climate change on the water cycle
The article effects of climate change on the water cycle has content about changes in salinity and also about ocean currents. My proposal is to bring ocean related content into this article and to refocus the other one on effects of climate change on water resources. I've also commented on the other article's talk page. In its current state, it overlaps too much with effects of climate change and Effects of climate change on oceans. EMsmile (talk) 14:03, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Review (June 2022 and ongoing through October)
I am working with content expert Tim Jickells on this article (he also helped a lot last year with ocean and also this year with eutrophication, harmful algal bloom and with Coastal waters). I've asked him for his opinion about this article and what he would change. Below you can find his suggestions:
 * In general it looks up to date and correct. What strikes me most is it is so wide ranging. In particular the biological effects in the later stages surprised me. That part is probably correct but there are so many impacts on biological systems of climate change, the reader wonders why these particular ones are here - although the answer is probably that polar bears and dolphins are very charismatic. Similarly, there are many effects of climate change on weather, so the short section here seems bit pointless.
 * Update: I've reworked the section about effects of marine mammals now (shortened and moved content to the articles on dolphins and pinnipeds; also reworked the section on weather. EMsmile (talk) 20:24, 21 October 2022 (UTC)


 * I know already there are Wikipedia articles on ocean acidification, hypoxia and AMOC and more. So in a general way do you want to achieve short articles with lots of links, or single comprehensive articles? I have the impression it is the former, and if that is the case I could try and highlight what seems the most important points for this article and leave the rest to links when thinking about edits.
 * Update: yes, it is the former. This article is meant to tie everything together and provide an overview and summary but not overlap too much with the relevant sub-articles, e.g. ocean deoxygenation. I've used excerpts quite a bit for this reason, too. EMsmile (talk) 20:24, 21 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Much of it seems relatively up to date. I suspect all of the data can be updated with the 2021 IPCC report, although the material change will be small. The detailed editing will be quite time consuming because this article contains rather precise details such as the current rate of predicted sea level rise. I wonder generally if you want to have these very precise references since they inevitably date and will also be covered in the relevant sub articles.
 * The content seems to cover most issues of concern I think. As I noted before the impacts on sea mammals seem surprisingly prominent but perhaps that is the sort of issue that draws in readers.
 * Update: I agree with you and have reduced the amount of text on those. EMsmile (talk) 20:24, 21 October 2022 (UTC)


 * In general I think the article might be better to have a bit less detail on all the predicted physical impacts and perhaps a bit more about why we should care about it.
 * Great point, I think the round of editing I did this week (using your comments from a marked-up Word document) have gone a long way to improve this aspect. EMsmile (talk) 20:24, 21 October 2022 (UTC)


 * The article seems to have a mixture of rather dry detailed stuff and then some apocalyptic predictions which are in some cases exaggerated and in the case of the "combined effects" section I think probably misleading. So I can generally make some suggestions about altering the balance if that is useful.
 * Update: yes, thank you. I have changed all that now, based on your marked-up Word document. EMsmile (talk) 20:24, 21 October 2022 (UTC)


 * The article seems to cite a book by Trujillo and Thurman quite a lot. It seems to be a college level oceanography book and I'm sure it is good - my only problem is I don't have access to it so wouldn't be able to double check the cited content or page numbers etc.
 * Update: that book is now only cited twice, in the ocean currents section. I am still pondering if I should shorted that section because content about ocean currents are also at ocean. EMsmile (talk) 20:24, 21 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Does that plan seem OK to you? EMsmile (talk) 14:56, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I haven't had time yet to address the above comments. I also received more comments by Thian Gan (IPCC author): "There isn’t much observations of precipitation and evaporation over oceans, but I believe it is possible to estimate P & E using remote sensing data especially regarding precipitation, e.g., Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) and GOES IR brightness temperature data?  May be you can add a sentence about such data somewhere?". To be addressed. EMsmile (talk) 21:24, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I am not sure about that. Perhaps that is more relevant for the article effects of climate change on the water cycle? I'll check again with Thian. EMsmile (talk) 20:24, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Please update with: "Marine heatwaves drive recurrent mass mortalities in the Mediterranean Sea"
Please add some info on/from this study to the article. It's currently featured in 2022 in science like so:

"A study shows that climate change-related exceptional marine heatwaves in the Mediterranean Sea during 2015–2019 resulted in widespread mass sealife die-offs in five consecutive years."

I already added info to it to the other two wikilinked articles. It's relevant here too and I think it should be added somewhere to section "#Biological effects and impacts on marine life", albeit the current section structure doesn't have summary section across many types of organisms so maybe you need to split the info to multiple sections or add a new section or add a summary to the top that also includes other info (not just this study).

Sadly figure 3 map in the study is not licensed CC BY and can't be uploaded/added here.

Prototyperspective (talk) 11:09, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Just a small note: Do we really need to have sentences that say "a study shows that..."? Why not just state the findings as facts and then add the reference at the end. Unless you want to point out that it's a meta-analysis, or a very large study or something else that is special about the study. EMsmile (talk) 11:47, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Good point, in general articles I try to avoid such phrases when appropriate. In that list article, it's included because on that day the study was published (this is the event which is ordered chronologically there), and in other articles such phrases can sometimes be useful too. For example, it helps to show that this is only the conclusion of a study and may not yet be highly established to be true as is (one study concluded this but other studies may have partially conflicting results). (In any case, other editors (especially those watching the respective page) can edit the new paragraphs if it's preferred to leave such out.) Prototyperspective (talk) 12:32, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Yea, a related discussion about mentioning "a study said XX" in a normal Wikipedia article (not the ones like "Year 2021 in Science" is here where we talked about mentioning the IPCC study explicitly or not: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Climate_change/Archive_4#Explicitly_mentioning_the_IPCC_report. Note that in the case of medicine articles, we are anyway not meant to cite individual studies, only meta-analyses and very reliable sources: WP:MEDRS. EMsmile (talk) 12:57, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Advanced Writing Science
— Assignment last updated by Skol1214 (talk) 17:17, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Using the long ref style
Hi User:Mikeblas, thanks for your help with this article. I see you've made some edits to the reference list, adding an additional list of sources. I plan to change this back so that the reference list is purely with the long ref style, not a mixture of long and short ref style. I've also talked about it more here in the past. And I hadn't noticed any cite errors for this article recently? Were they here or at ocean heat content? EMsmile (talk) 17:56, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Hello! The referencing error is in the subsection "Ocean heat content" because it included text from Ocean heat content. That article uses a footnote "IPCC_AR6_WG1_Ch9" which wasn't defined in the included section. Moving it to the included section help,s but it references the bibliography in that article, so a definition for the footnote had to be moved here to resolve the error. If you want this article to exclusively use a certain referencing style, then every article it transcudes from must use that same referencing style (at least, for the transcluded sections). -- Mikeblas (talk) 21:11, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Oh, Ok, now I understand, thanks. Yea, that's a bummer about those excerpts. I think I'll convert ocean heat content also to long ref style (I already wrote about my intention on the talk page of ocean heat content on 7 October and nobody objected, so I'll go ahead with that soon). EMsmile (talk) 21:36, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I've changed ocean heat content now to long ref style so we no longer need the separate "sources" section here. Now that excerpts are getting used more and more, it would be good to generally more to long ref style for most articles... EMsmile (talk) 11:48, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

Working on the lead
I've just copied some paragraphs from effects of climate change to the lead as I thought they were pretty good. However, they now introduce a bit of repetition in the lead. This is work in progress. In general, we need to ensure that this article integrates well with Effects of climate change and also with effects of climate change on the water cycle. EMsmile (talk) 09:28, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I've done more work on the lead now. The lead is transcribed to other articles, e.g. ocean and effects of climate change so it's important that it's a good summary of the article. The first sentence is the most important one (did you know that when you ask the voice assistant Alexa from Amazon: "Alexa, what are the effects of climate change?", Alexa reads out our first sentence (without mentioning that Wikipedia is the source). I discovered this on the weekend. Quite nice! (although I think Alexa should say source: Wikipedia). So, the lead is now a long listing of individual effects. I know the sentence is very long but I see no other way around that: There are many significant effects of climate change on oceans including: an increase in sea surface temperature as well as ocean temperatures at greater depths, more marine heatwaves, a reduction in pH value, a rise in sea level from ocean warming and ice sheet melting, sea ice decline in the Arctic, increased upper ocean stratification, reductions in oxygen levels, increased contrasts in salinity (salty areas becoming saltier and fresher areas becoming less salty), changes to ocean currents including a weakening of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, stronger tropical cyclones and monsoons, and changing wind patterns. EMsmile (talk) 20:40, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Also, I think it's easier for readers to understand "a reduction in pH value" than "ocean acidification", isn't it? Most people have heard of what a pH value is? EMsmile (talk) 20:40, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Adding a Sea Turtle Section
Hi everyone, my group is working on this article for a class and we were thinking of adding on a sea turtle subs-section above the effects on marine mammals sub-section. Sea turtles are greatly affected by climate change in oceans, specifically due to temperature change and we think that this would be noteworthy in this wikipedia article. If you have any suggestions for us let us know! Mountsainthelena (talk) 21:58, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi Mountsainthelena, yes in principle. But perhaps the relevant content is already here: Sea turtle, in which case you could just add an excerpt from there, e.g. by taking the first three paragraphs from that section and transcribing them with the excerpt tool. See how excerpts are used in other parts of this article. EMsmile (talk) 22:47, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Improving readability
Hello, I am currently editing this article to improve its readability. My work is part of a project focusing on improving the readability of climate change articles on Wikipedia. To learn more about the project, visit: Meetup/SDGs/Communication of environment SDGs Bradextw (talk) 13:10, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

Replace image in the lead with 2 x 2 image collage?
I think the image that is in the lead is not very clear. It has a lot of arrows and text but doesn't make it very clear what the effects are, as distinct from the causes. I think a 2 x 2 image collage could work better, similar to the one at effects of climate change. The image collage could include: Pinging User:ASRASR and User:Chidgk1. EMsmile (talk) 12:47, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
 * an image related to the pH drop (a graph of pH over time?)
 * an image related to marine heat waves (a coral bleaching image? Mind you, coral bleaching is also caused by other factors, but OK).
 * an image related to sea level rise (a coastal flooding image?).
 * an image related to sea ice melting (a breaking off of an ice shelf?).

Wiki Education assignment: ENGW3303 Adv Writing for Environmental Professions 14387
— Assignment last updated by EcoBear13 (talk) 19:04, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

North Atlantic Right Whale section
Hello, I am working on this article for a class as you can see above. The main part of my project is updating the North Atlantic right whale section, but my professor recommended that I simultaneously add a small section to this article under the impacts on marine life//marine mammals. I will likely employ an excerpt as used in other sections of this article. EcoBear13 (talk) 19:56, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that's a good solution. EMsmile (talk) 19:38, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: EEB 4611-Biogeochemical Processes-Spring 2024
— Assignment last updated by LynSchwendy (talk) 03:28, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Wordings need elboration and explaining
1. "The upper ocean (above 700 m) is warming the fastest, but the warming trend is widespread. " Can anybody help elaborate the expression of "but the warming trend is widespread", or use other wordings to make them easy to understand? 2. "The warming rate varies with depth: at a depth of a thousand metres the warming occurs at a rate of nearly 0.4 °C per century (data from 1981 to 2019), whereas warming occurs at only half that depth." the part "whereas warming occurs at only half that depth" seems to me incomplete, can anybody help？ Thanks for your kind attention. ThomasYehYeh (talk) 13:26, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Well spotted. I've improved it now, let me know if it's clearer like this? EMsmile (talk) 15:31, 6 February 2024 (UTC)