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Stephens, Tim --- "Climate change adaptation and marine and coastal law" [2013] ELECD 871; in Verschuuren, Jonathan (ed), "Research Handbook on Climate Change Adaptation Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2013) 273

Book Title: Research Handbook on Climate Change Adaptation Law

Editor(s): Verschuuren, Jonathan

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781781000076

Section: Chapter 10

Section Title: Climate change adaptation and marine and coastal law

Author(s): Stephens, Tim

Number of pages: 25

Abstract/Description:

Human induced climate change is driving rapid biophysical changes throughout the oceans and seas that cover 71 per cent of the Earth’s surface, and which are the primary drivers of the global climate system. The oceans have been critically important in maintaining global climatic stability, absorbing around 40 per cent of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from human activities and around 90 per cent of the heat added to the Earth’s system by climate change. The most visible effect of climate change in the marine and coastal environment has been sea level rise, and the transformation of coastal geography poses a profound climate adapt- ation challenge. Even if atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases are stabilised, sea levels will continue to rise for millennia, making coastal adaptation an issue that will demand ongoing attention. Accompanying sea level rise are other climate change impacts upon coastal and marine areas. These include rapid melting of sea ice (most notably in the Arctic Ocean,4 where the extent of summer sea ice reached a record low in 2012), saltwater intrusion into freshwater aquifers (affecting water supplies), rising water temperatures (affecting the productivity and distribution of fisheries, causing algae blooms and dam- aging corals), storms and storm surges (which are exacerbating erosion) and ocean acidification (the changing chemistry of the oceans damaging many marine organisms). All of these impacts can be tempered to some extent by adaptive responses.