NEWS FLASH

‘The Ocean Is Sick’ | “The ocean is sick,” Victor Smetacek, a biological oceanographer at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Germany, said at a recent international workshop at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim. Global warming is causing oceans to warm, and areas where there is no oxygen in the seawater are expanding, which will affect fisheries worldwide. As worrisome as this might be, however, he told the group that sea level rise from melting ice caps poses a far more imminent problem. “Sea level rise is inevitable,” he said. “This is something that we will face in 2-3 decades. … I know I am scaring you, but I need to.”