‘Severe’ stress on oceans as rate of sea level rise doubles in 10 years, UN warns

Global effort needed to limit effects of pollution, industrial fishing and climate crisis, World Ocean Assessment says

The world’s oceans are under “severe and accelerating” pressure from human activities, with the rate of sea-level rise double that of a decade ago, according to a damning assessment from the United Nations .

The “intensifying” stressors, which include pollution and large-scale industrial fishing, are cumulative, said the report , resulting in widespread biodiversity loss and putting ocean systems under “severe strain”.

The UN’s third World Ocean Assessment, which reflects the work of nearly 600 scientists from 86 countries, looked at the oceans’ health from 2021-25. The previous report, that covered up to 2018, found persistent degradation of the marine environment.

Five years on, scientists know more about the cumulative impacts of anthropogenic pressures on the ocean, and the latest report shows just how much of the damage has been done in the past few years. The scientists’ key findings include:

Sea levels continue to rise at an increasing rate, from 2mm a year prior to 2015 to 4.3mm a year in 2023.

16% of the increase in global ocean heat since 1955 occurred after 2018.

The greatest relative warming has been observed in the Atlantic Ocean and the southern parts of the Indian and Pacific Oceans .