Emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide from human activity cause ocean warming, acidification, oxygen loss, and other physical and chemical changes that are affecting marine ecosystems around the world. At the same time, natural climate variability and direct human impacts, such as overfishing and pollution, also affect marine ecosystems locally, regionally and globally. These climate and non-climate impact drivers counteract each other, add up or multiply to produce smaller or larger changes than expected from individual drivers. Attribution of changes in marine ecosystems requires evaluating the often-interacting roles of natural climate variability, non-climate drivers, and human-induced climate change. To do this work, scientists use
IPCC
Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability
IPCC Report