Dr Craig Stevens, NIWA scientist. Photo: NIWA
Hundreds of international scientists are calling for the urgent expansion of science focused on the Southern Ocean in the face of climate change.
This week, 300 scientists from 25 nations met in Hobart for the first-ever international conference of the Southern Ocean Observing System.
NIWA scientist Craig Stevens was on the steering committee, and said it was vital there were more observations of a rapidly changing part of the planet's climate system.
"This is a real call and a pointed message to decision makers in governments all around the world, both around how they invest in science but more importantly, the stark, crystal clear message that's coming from the sciences around the need to reduce emmissions," he said
"Those changes are changing things like sea level rise, so we're going to have to move towns that are on the coast.
"But they're also changing our weather patterns and they're going to be changing marine ecosystems in the decades and centuries to come."
Stevens said more than 90 percent of the heat stored by the planet through increased emissions was in the Southern Ocean.
The onus was also on the scientific community to work across borders to share knowledge and resource, he said.
