The major ocean-related threats to human health will likely be realized as a result of sea level rise, the influence of the ocean on climate and weather, declines in fisheries, and ocean contamination that enters the linked marine and human food chains. To the first order, these ocean changes are due to large-scale warming of the ocean and the related melting of glaciers and ice sheet, as well as the scale and spatial distribution of heavy metal and plastic pollution. Changes in ocean currents linked to global warming likely play a second-order, and still uncertain, role in shaping human health outcomes of these perturbations. Nevertheless, shifting ocean circulation influences the spatial patterns of sea level rise and weather patterns we experience and can set the pace of ecosystem stressors such as marine heat waves, deoxygenation, and acidification which can collectively threaten fisheries and other resources. Our goal is to review some of the ocean circulation changes that may have these human health consequences. |
