Episode 2
Ocean Warming: Our fisheries and the scientific advice to end global carbon emissions

As carbon emissions are building up in the atmosphere, the ocean is absorbing and storing much more heat, transforming Alaska’s oceans before our very eyes. We discuss scientific advice to sharply reduce carbon emissions.

Photo courtesy of Chris Miller.

Bristol Bay

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Expert Interviewed

Francis Wiese, Stantec
Francis Wiese is the Technical Leader for Marine Science at Stantec, a global design, engineering, and environmental consulting firm. He serves on the Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee, the Studies of Environmental Arctic Change (SEARCH) Steering Committee, and the Division Committee for the National Academies of Sciences Gulf Research Program, and other scientific organizations to foster coordinated research in the Gulf of Mexico, the Pacific, Atlantic, and Arctic Oceans. Wiese holds a PhD in Conservation and Marine Biology from Memorial University of Newfoundland.

Francis Weise

More information on topics discussed in this episode:

  • Carbon dioxide comprises 80% of the greenhouse gases. The other gases are methane, nitrous oxide, and a family of synthetic fluorinated gases. The EPA: Overview of Greenhouse Gases provides a useful description including the percentage they contribute to the total, their global warming potential, and how long they stay in the atmosphere from a few years to thousands of years.
  • Nature-based climate solutions involve conserving, restoring, or better managing ecosystems to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere – or in the case of ocean acidification, removing carbon from the water. “What are nature-based solutions?”
  • Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2019) – Oceans and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate
    • This report focuses on oceans, coasts, frozen regions of the globe (polar regions and high mountains). It presents current science on the impacts of ocean warming and other consequences of ocean uptake of carbon from the atmosphere, such as ocean acidification.
  • Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2018) –  Global Warming of 1.5°C
    • This is an IPCC Special Report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related scenarios of global greenhouse gas emissions.
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For more information
Contact Darcy Dugan, dugan@aoos.org