Due to climate change our seas and oceans are getting warmer. And now scientists have confirmed that a warmer temperature in the waters will create stronger storms, such as Katrina in 2005 and the more recent hurricane Ike.

“If the seas continue to warm, we can expect to see stronger storms in the future,” James Elsner of Florida State University said.

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Research by the University of Gothenburg shows that more than 400 marine zones around the world has such “a great lack of oxygen in soft seabeds that fauna and fish have been harmed.” The research made by the Swedish University also shows that the dead soft seabeds have doubled every decade since the 60’s.

Back in 1995 Rutger Rosenberg, from the Department of Marine Ecology, University of Gothenburg, and Robert Diaz, from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science in the USA, carried out research and studies on the world’s soft seabeds. Their research then showed 44 zones “that were so afflicted by oxygen deficiency that soft-seabed fauna and fish had been harmed.”

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There are many environmental problems caused by human but not widely known. One of them is eutrophication. This phenomenon cannot be entirely characterised as water pollution, as it mostly describes the process of too many plants growing in lakes, rivers and sometimes in the sea.

When household and industrial wastes are disposed into the water, they increase the quantity of germs in it. Germs threaten the health of the organisms living in the water, drinking it or feeding on organisms that live in it. Moreover, huge quantities of nitric and phosphoric salts enter the ecosystem. Phytoplankton, the tiniest sea organisms that can photosynthesize and depend highly on those salts, start to grow in population at top speed, consuming oxygen. As a result, zooplankton which feeds on phytoplankton starts to increase in numbers, again consuming oxygen and producing carbon dioxide.

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Despite the ban in 1994, radioactive depositions still reach the seas. In french pipes of nuclear facilities Greenpeace’s divers found the waters to have 17.000.000 times more intense radioactivity than clean waters. In Norway, crabs and seaweeds have been polluted by the radioactive substance technetium. Scientists found it comes from old british facilities for nuclear fuels. However, american geologists are thinking of burying under the seabed radioactive materials.

Since 1959 enormous quantities of radioactive waste have been thrown into the Arctic Ocean, including nuclear reactors, while another million of chemical weapons decay onto the sea floor in 400-4500 metres depth. Moreover, Spain has stored 100.000 barrels containing slight radiocative waste, from scientific laboratories. Plutonium from the nuclear trials is detected in the southern seas of the Atlantic ocean. Britain has recorded 57.435 shipwrecks, including nuclear submarines.

The highly dangerous poison DDT harms the marine organisms more than the others, and thanks to the marine currents it is transfered to all seas, affecting every organism. PBDE, a substance used for computer and television construction, has been detected in whales’ fat!

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