Editor's Note

Oceans make up more that seventy percent of the Earth's surface. Geographers and mapmakers segregate them into at least four major bodies of water—the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, and Arctic Oceans—with an average mean depth of 12,081 feet. The Atlantic and Indian Oceans each comprise almost 30 million square miles of the Earth's surface, and the Pacific, over 60 million square miles. Each of these oceans, especially the nearly 5.5 million square mile Arctic, is by common scientific consensus facing some form of environmental catastrophe in the near future.

If, like the rotation and orbit of the planets, these approaching ocean catastrophes were beyond human agency, there would not be much sense in changing our behaviors in order to prevent them. However, as we have come to learn in increasing depth and detail, some of these destructive oceanic influences have been around for centuries, while others have only come into being within the last fifty years. Conservationist and marine scientist Callum Roberts concisely summarize the urgency of our situation as follows:

The oceans are changing faster than at almost any time in Earth's history, and we are the agents of that transformation. Many of these changes will test the ability of its denizens to survive into the future. The alterations are also reshaping our own relationship with the sea and threaten many of the things that we most cherish and take for granted. Our failure to notice creeping environmental degradation has compromised our quality of life. In extreme circumstances, it threatens human welfare. History offers many examples of civilizations that have been destroyed by environmental catastrophes that they have unwittingly brought upon themselves.

(Roberts 2012, 5)

But the difference today is that degradation of the oceans has the potential to destroy not just individual civilizations, but our planet itself. Moreover, given the level of information we have regarding these threats and our options for reversing their course, we cannot say today that we have "unwittingly" brought them upon ourselves. We know much of what we are doing to the oceans, but many just don't seem to care that it is destroying our planet.

General apathy, or, in more extreme cases, denial that we are the agents of oceanic transformation has led to a paucity of new data about our major bodies of water. James Lovelock, an independent scientist that has been dubbed "one of the world's top 100 global public intellectuals," says that "Observation in the real world and small-scale experiments on the Earth now take second place to expensive and ever-expanding theoretical models" (2009, 8-9). Though this may be "administratively and politically convenient" (8), it is not good for learning more about the Earth. "Our tank is near empty of data, and we are running on theoretical vapor: this is especially true of data about the oceans…and about the responses of ecosystems to climate change—and, just as importantly, the effect of change in the oceans and ecosystems on the climate" (9).

This data is needed because there is no single "cause" or set of "effects" for climate change. In fact, changing climates involve many elements where we rely on data including "increase in Arctic temperatures, reduced size of icebergs, melting of icecaps and glaciers, reduced permafrost, changes in rainfall, reduced bio-diversity, new wind patterns, more droughts and heat waves, and more frequent tropical cyclones and other extreme weather events" (Urry 2011, 6). But it also includes data on human behavior as well, particularly regarding the "slow violence" (borrowing this term from Rob Nixon) of increasing numbers of affluent humans on our oceans.

One example of this "slow violence" is the emission of carbon dioxide by human activities. Keri Emanuel describes its effects on our oceans well:

as atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide increase, roughly one quarter of the excess gas is absorbed by the ocean, increasing its acidity. Since the dawn of the industrial revolution, ocean water has become 30 percent more acidic. Between 1995 and 2010 alone, the acidity of the uppermost 300 feet of the North Pacific Ocean increased by 6 percent...