Global ocean conservation under the magnifying glass

Paolo Guidetti; Roberto Danovaro

doi:10.1002/aqc.2854

The Ocean 100: Transnational corporations in the ocean economy

Science Advances ◽

10.1126/sciadv.abc8041 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 7 (3) ◽

pp. eabc8041

Author(s):

J. Virdin ◽

T. Vegh ◽

J.-B. Jouffray ◽

R. Blasiak ◽

S. Mason ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Private Sector ◽

Transnational Corporations ◽

Industry Concentration ◽

Global Ocean ◽

Commercial Use ◽

Ocean Conservation

The ocean economy is growing as commercial use of the ocean accelerates, while progress toward achieving international goals for ocean conservation and sustainability is lagging. In this context, the private sector is increasingly recognized as having the capacity to hamper efforts to achieve aspirations of sustainable ocean-based development or alternatively to bend current trajectories of ocean use by taking on the mantle of corporate biosphere stewardship. Here, we identify levels of industry concentration to assess where this capacity rests. We show that the 10 largest companies in eight core ocean economy industries generate, on average, 45% of each industry’s total revenues. Aggregating across all eight industries, the 100 largest corporations (the “Ocean 100”) account for 60% of total revenues. This level of concentration in the ocean economy presents both risks and opportunities for ensuring sustainability and equity of global ocean use.

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On the impact of sea ice in a global ocean circulation model

Annals of Glaciology ◽

10.3189/s0260305500013884 ◽

1997 ◽

Vol 25 ◽

pp. 111-115 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Achim Stössel

Keyword(s):

Southern Ocean ◽

Sea Ice ◽

Ocean Circulation ◽

General Circulation ◽

Thermohaline Circulation ◽

Circulation Model ◽

Deep Ocean ◽

Global Ocean ◽

Convective Activity ◽

The Impact

This paper investigates the long-term impact of sea ice on global climate using a global sea-ice–ocean general circulation model (OGCM). The sea-ice component involves state-of-the-art dynamics; the ocean component consists of a 3.5° × 3.5° × 11 layer primitive-equation model. Depending on the physical description of sea ice, significant changes are detected in the convective activity, in the hydrographic properties and in the thermohaline circulation of the ocean model. Most of these changes originate in the Southern Ocean, emphasizing the crucial role of sea ice in this marginally stably stratified region of the world's oceans. Specifically, if the effect of brine release is neglected, the deep layers of the Southern Ocean warm up considerably; this is associated with a weakening of the Southern Hemisphere overturning cell. The removal of the commonly used “salinity enhancement” leads to a similar effect. The deep-ocean salinity is almost unaffected in both experiments. Introducing explicit new-ice thickness growth in partially ice-covered gridcells leads to a substantial increase in convective activity, especially in the Southern Ocean, with a concomitant significant cooling and salinification of the deep ocean. Possible mechanisms for the resulting interactions between sea-ice processes and deep-ocean characteristics are suggested.

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