A Philosophical View of the Ocean and Humanity (Springerbriefs in Environmental Science) 9783030366797, 3030366790

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Anders Omstedt

A Philosophical View of the Ocean and Humanity

A Philosophical View of the Ocean and Humanity

Anders Omstedt

A Philosophical View of the Ocean and Humanity

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Anders Omstedt Department of Marine Sciences University of Gothenburg Gothenburg, Västra Götalands Län, Sweden

ISBN 978-3-030-36679-7 ISBN 978-3-030-36680-3 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36680-3

(eBook)

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: A wandering albatross flying at Amundsen Sea, Antarctica (from Christian Stranne) This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Who asks what the nature of the ocean is? Who is driven to interpret the law of the ocean? Those who are driven to ask what their own nature is. Who am I? That question can be asked by all. If you ask the ocean, the ocean will give you answers.1

Foreword by Alice Newton

Late in the twentieth century, hopefully not too late, humankind began to realize that planet earth was really planet ocean. Slowly, we are coming to understand the importance of the ocean in the earth system. The ocean regulates our climate and has so far buffered some of the worst effects of climate change, aggravated by our greenhouse gas emissions. Nevertheless, our ignorance of the ocean is profound, the gaps in our knowledge unfathomable. An increasing proportion of the world population is now living on coastlines, narrow, vulnerable strips of land bordering our continents and subject to storm surges, tsunamis, erosion, subsidence, and sea-level rise. Coastal communities depend on the ecosystem services of the ocean to provide them with food and energy, to protect them from storms, to regulate temperatures with cooling ocean breezes, to support abundant fisheries, and to provide them with places for tourism, leisure, water sports, and enjoyment. Great cities are now turning to the ocean for the provision of water through desalination. We are exploring the energy of waves and currents and the rich minerals of the seabed. We are discovering the medicinal uses of more and more marine organisms in our search for cures for cancer and other diseases. However, our human activities threaten the very ocean that we depend on, as we continue to contaminate, pollute, over-extract resources, dam rivers, and change the configuration of the coastline. As we do so, we destroy the biodiversity and ecosystems that we ultimately depend on, especially the ecosystem engineer communities in mangrove forests, salt marshes, seagrass meadows, and coral reefs. Anders Omstedt is a marine scientist who understands the importance of the ocean. He speaks to us as only a very knowledgeable scientist can, in a clear voice that makes complex scientific processes understandable. He also speaks to us as a philosopher, one who thinks deeply about the deep oceans. Finally, he allows himself to become a medium, someone who speaks and becomes the voice of the ocean.

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Foreword by Alice Newton

This book links science, art, philosophy, and psychology in a profoundly satisfying way. It touches those who love the sea; it tells the scientist that the sea is more than a set of processes that can be expressed by equations and box-models. Most of all, it reminds us that humans depend on the sea and that we should treat the sea with respect. Faro, Portugal

Alice Newton

Alice Newton Professor in the Department of Earth, Environmental, and Marine Sciences (DCTMA), Centre for Marine and Environmental Research (CIMA), Gambelas Campus, University of Algarve, 8005-139 Faro, Portugal.

Foreword by Martin Visbeck

Humankind is linked to the ocean in many ways: the ocean encircles the planet, covers 71% of the earth’s surface, and holds unmatched, and sometimes untouched, natural resources—more than we could ever imagine. Here life began and has been sustained for eons, harbouring secrets we have yet to unlock. For generations, the vast and endless ocean, romantic beachscapes, bizarre deep-sea life, and the interplay of wind, waves, and light have fascinated and inspired artists, writers, and filmmakers. The ocean is a source of food and energy and the highway of international commerce, and 40% of humanity lives within 100 km of its shores. It provides sustenance and livelihoods, and links our global economy. But the ocean is also a vast yet final warning system displaying the tell-tale signs of our careless lifestyles: it has become highly stressed by our growing interventions and is suffering under the burden of pollution and climate change. From a scientific perspective, the diagnosis is clear: we need to re-evaluate current human–ocean interactions. Natural science provides mounting evidence of how collective human activity is changing the ocean, putting dramatically increasing pressure on its ecosystem and threatening a number of vital ecosystem services. As well, the social sciences and humanities are beginning to understand the deep emotional and societal connections between humans and the ocean. A critical challenge is to reconcile these perspectives and develop a scientific systems understanding of possible sustainable development pathways. What societal and technical transformations are needed to safeguard critical marine ecosystem services, and what governance arrangements are needed to share ocean prosperity and benefits globally? How can we be good stewards of our planet so that we and future generations can live in harmony with the ocean? How can we use our understanding of the ocean and human systems to change our actions to support human life within safe limits so that the ocean can continue to sustain its ecosystem services for us as it has for so long? The recently proclaimed United Nations’ Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021–2030) provides a rare opportunity for marine scientists to show how working closely across disciplines and with societal actors to co-design innovative and transformative solutions can lead to a more sustainable ix

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Foreword by Martin Visbeck

human–ocean relationship. Anders Omstedt’s book takes on this challenge by describing the ocean from the dual perspectives of science and the arts, a productive synthesis that encourages us to develop our ocean system thinking. It motivates us, providing the hope needed to take transformative human action to safeguard the ocean we need for the future we want. Kiel, Germany

Martin Visbeck

Martin Visbeck Professor of Physical Oceanography at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel and Kiel University, and spokesperson of the Kiel ‘Future Ocean’ cluster.

Preface

By the end of this century it is estimated that the human population will have grown to over 10 billion people, and by 2050 almost 70% are expected to be living in urban areas and megacities increasingly alienated from the marine environment with its pervasive plastic contamination. Today’s young generation will need to respond to many of today’s alarming warning signs. Perhaps the most important question to be addressed is how humans can direct marine development onto a sustainable path while preserving their humanity. Early in my study of the oceans, I became interested in the thermodynamics of the water surface layer and in ice formation. The initial ice formation in the ocean in the form of frazil ice was the topic of my Ph.D. research. At that time, I became increasingly aware that my studies of the external sea also fed into my studies of my ‘internal sea’, and I was relieved to find that my emotional awareness was not frozen. Frazil ice is much more dynamic than solid ice and served as a metaphor for my emotional life—wild and fascinating. Later, during post-doctoral studies in Canada, I studied deepwater processes in Lake Ontario and the Baltic Sea while becoming interested in my own and others’ dreams. I became aware that I could think in different ways. Working with computer coding and on the same day answering children’s questions gave me the experience of how the left and right sides of my brain worked and complemented each other— though this was not discussed among natural scientists at that time. I was becoming interested in how I and others thought about and processed experience. My oceanography work became increasingly oriented towards understanding systems, and modelling physical ocean processes fed into biochemical modelling of the carbon system. This opened up the possibility of addressing problems related to climate change and eutrophication, and of modelling multiple stressors of the ocean. Such modelling, mostly using a bottom-up approach, became more and more complex. The human effects on the climate were obvious. They could be modelled by considering past and present climatic conditions, extending them into the future by prescribing different emission pathways. Anthropogenic pressures on the ocean, especially its coastal seas, are strong in various ways, opening up new questions about how to model human impacts. xi

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Preface

What determines human behaviour and what pathway humanity will take in the future are questions that cannot be answered with certainty. It was obvious to me that science needs to improve its understanding of human behaviour and human perceptions of the ocean, so I wrote a book about how analytical thinking and intuition could be better and more productively connected. Dreams can be used as a teaching tool in transforming emotions into stories of great value and psychological resonance, and these stories can be used in the task of integrating analytical thought and intuition. From long experience in dream group work using the Ullman method, I realized that dream analysis provides an excellent background for studying how we think. I argued that intuitive thinking that connects science and the arts should be better used by scientists. In this book, I expand on this idea by investigating the connection between science and the arts, starting from marine science and our conscious and unconscious perceptions of the ocean. The aim is to illustrate the central importance of the ocean for humans, and expose the disconnect between the ocean and human emotions that leads to the misuse of the former. Gothenburg, Sweden

Anders Omstedt

Acknowledgements

This work is a contribution to the Baltic Earth and the Future Earth programmes. Various people have supported the writing of this book through productive discussions and inspiring comments, including Christina Claesson, Stefan Eklöf Amirell, Dawn Field, Anne Godhe, Per Hallén, Sven Hedenrud, Stefan Hulth, Lars-Ove Loo, Ingrid Löfström, Jan Mårtensson, Hillevi Nagel, Alice Newton, Stina Nielsen, Bo Nilsson, Jim Overland, Marcus Reckermann, Ywonne and Jörgen Sahlberg, Erik Selander, William Stimpson, Eva-Lotta Sundblad, Martin Visbeck, and Hans von Storch. In addition, Hillevi Nagel, Sabine Billerbeck, Christian Stranne, and Emma Pettersson have generously contributed photographs. Special thanks are extended to Stina Hammar for opening my eyes to literature and to Stephen Sanborn at Proper English for his editorial support over my many years of publishing articles and books in English. The work was partly financed by the Ekman Foundation and the Centre for Sea and Society, both at the University of Gothenburg. Finally, the author would like to thank Margaret Deignan and the Springer Nature team for their strong support in bringing this work to publication.

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Abstract

This book is about the ocean and about the future. It is written in two modes, a concerned analytical scientific mode and an intuitive artistic mode in which the ocean is given a voice. The disconnect in the relationship between human dependency and treatment of the ocean is examined in a dialogue between these two modes. The book illustrates how science and the arts can be connected to increase our awareness of the state of the ocean and support behavioural change. The book is intended for university students and researchers, but will speak to anyone who would like to contribute to the sustainable use of the ocean. The ocean’s services to humankind are enormous and fundamental, and their value is inestimable. A change in human attitudes towards the ocean should be based on something other than simplistic and reductive economic costing. The attitude change needs to be based on a fundamental shift in our understanding of human values and how we interact with one another and with our environment. Antidotes to narrow thinking, fragmented vision, alienation, despair, and fear involve the integration of curiosity, courage, listening, hope, and simplicity in daily life. The beauty and vulnerability of both the ocean and humanity are facts that can inspire improved health and harmony, a vision well formulated by the United Nations in its 17 Sustainable Development Goals.













Keywords Ocean Coastal seas Climate change Environmental change Connecting science and the arts Sustainability Oceanography Psychology Philosophy













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Contents

1

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1 7

2

An Attempt to Connect to the Ocean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

9 11

3

Knowledge in Science and the Arts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

13 18

4

Ice and Curiosity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

21 27

5

Stratification, Turbulence, and Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

29 33

6

Currents, Circulation, and Vulnerability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

35 40

7

Heat Balance, Water Temperature, and Interpretations . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

41 46

8

Water Balance, Salinity, and Belonging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

47 51

9

Oxygen, Life, and Partnership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

53 56

10 Plankton and Courage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

57 61

11 Ecosystems and Listening . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

63 67

12 Non-living Ocean Resources and Hope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

69 73

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Contents

13 Human Interaction and Vision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

75 81

14 Climate Change, Human Influence, and Harmony . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

83 86

15 Scenarios, the Future, and Simplicity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

87 91

16 Reconnecting to the Ocean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

93 99

17 Orchestration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 Appendix A: Some Mathematical Insights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 Appendix B: Some Useful Websites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 Glossary and Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

About the Author

Anders Omstedt is Professor Emeritus of Oceanography at the Department of Marine Sciences, University of Gothenburg. He has long experience in marine science, particularly in modelling related to physical processes such as sea ice change, temperature change, salinity change, turbulent mixing, and heat and water cycles, and to biogeochemical processes such as oxygen generation and depletion, nutrient dynamics, and carbon dynamics. His work has addressed various questions concerning, for example, ice forecasting, climate and climate change, marine acidification, and eutrophication. He was a part-time Science Coordinator for the Swedish Institute for the Marine Environment and previously occupied various positions at the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute. He has developed and chaired the BALTEX programme and co-chaired the BALTEX Assessment of Climate Change for the Baltic Sea Basin (BACC). He is a dream group leader approved by the Swedish Dream Group Forum.

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About the Photographer

Hillevi Nagel is a photographer educated at the University of Gothenburg, Valand Academy, and Biskop-Arnö Adult Education School, where she studied documentary photography. She has worked on several books and exhibition projects featuring pure and simple narrative photographs. She has long experience in working with dreams, mainly following Ullman’s dream group method.

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List of Photographs

Photograph 1.1 Photograph 1.2 Photograph 2.1 Photograph 3.1 Photograph 3.2 Photograph 4.1 Photograph 4.2 Photograph 5.1 Photograph 5.2 Photograph 6.1 Photograph 6.2 Photograph 7.1

Photograph 7.2 Photograph 8.1 Photograph 8.2 Photograph 9.1 Photograph 10.1

What is our relationship to the ocean? Photo courtesy of Hillevi Nagel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Where does all this come from? Photo courtesy of Hillevi Nagel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chance to enter into a dialogue? Photo courtesy of Hillevi Nagel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . How can we change our behaviour? Photo courtesy of Anders Omstedt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . How can science and the arts meet? Photo courtesy of Sabine Billerbeck . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . What feelings can ice rouse? Photo courtesy of Hillevi Nagel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . How can we encourage curiosity? Photo courtesy of Christian Stranne . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . What feelings do ocean surfaces awake? Photo courtesy of Hillevi Nagel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Motions at the surface and in the deep? Photo courtesy of Hillevi Nagel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Eddies? Photo courtesy of Hillevi Nagel . . . . . . . . . . . . . What creatures live here? Photo courtesy of Hillevi Nagel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . If this is a dream image what kind of feelings and symbols can be detected? Photo courtesy of Hillevi Nagel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Unlimited? Photo courtesy of Hillevi Nagel . . . . . . . . . . How long will it last? Photo courtesy of Hillevi Nagel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Where is the light? Photo courtesy of Hillevi Nagel . . . . Learning new things? Photo courtesy of Hillevi Nagel . . . . What does it take to listen? Photo courtesy of Hillevi Nagel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

3 6 10 15 17 22 26 31 32 37 39

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Photograph 11.1 Photograph 12.1 Photograph 13.1 Photograph 13.2 Photograph 14.1 Photograph 15.1 Photograph 16.1

List of Photographs

Who owns the ocean? Photo courtesy of Emma Pettersson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Is this the future ocean? Photo courtesy of Hillevi Nagel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . What does our footprint look like? Photo courtesy of Hillevi Nagel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . What is our vision? Photo courtesy of Hillevi Nagel . Endeavour for harmony? Photo courtesy of Christian Stranne . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Simplicity supports beauty? Photo courtesy of Hillevi Nagel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . How can we reconnect? Photo courtesy of Hillevi Nagel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Chapter 1

Introduction

Abstract This opening chapter introduces the threats that the ocean and its coastal seas face from strong anthropogenic pressures. The challenge of addressing these threats require a great change in human behaviour, as communicated by scientists and in the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. To meet this challenge, the science community needs to work across many academic disciplines using transdisciplinary approaches and develop new skills of communication. Such communication occurs via drama, scientific and literary writing, and global and regional assessments conveying increasingly urgent information, though new and more facts alone may not be enough to change the behaviour. The chapter opens with a discussion of the need to couple science and the arts, with the latter providing knowledge of societal and human values necessary to foster change. Keywords Ocean · Coastal seas · Climate change · Environmental change · Connecting science and the arts · Sustainability · Oceanography · Psychology · Philosophy The ocean and its coastal seas are increasingly threatened by relentless anthropogenic pressures. Natural scientists are struggling to address these threats, and doing so requires a broad understanding of various natural science disciplines, such as oceanography, meteorology, hydrology, geology, geography, chemistry, and biology, but also of human behaviour from disciplines such as literature, psychology, history, philosophy, law, sociology, political science, and economics. What is certain is that human society must change its behaviour with the goal of achieving sustainable interaction with the ocean (World Ocean Review 2010, 2017). Society must address these ‘global grand challenges’, and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (UN 2030), adopted in 2015 by the United Nations, contains 17 major Sustainable Development Goals and 169 targets related to these challenges. The 2030 Agenda is integrated and indivisible, intended to balance economic, social, and technological progress in harmony with nature. Three of the Goals directly concern water: Goal 6—clean water and sanitation concerns the sustainable management of water; Goal 13—climate action concerns urgently addressing climate change; and Goal 14—life below water concerns the sustainable use of the oceans, seas, and marine resources (UN 2018). © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 A. Omstedt, A Philosophical View of the Ocean and Humanity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36680-3_1

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1 Introduction

Putting management of the oceans and coastal seas onto a sustainable pathway requires a huge change in thinking and, to this end, the scientific community needs to initiate research programmes across many academic disciplines using transdisciplinary approaches. Improving our understanding of complex problems, finding new solutions, changing attitudes towards sustainability, and communicating these matters to a large diverse group of people, such as scientists from various disciplines, politicians, experts, students, and laypeople, represent important future missions (Photograph 1.1). How scientific truth comes into conflict with society is illustrated in Henrik Ibsen’s 1882 play2 An Enemy of the People. The conflict starts with Dr. Stockmann investigating the water in the city spa. After careful investigation, he finds that the spa water is seriously polluted by bacteria and identifies the source of the contamination—his father-in-law’s tannery—and the changes needed to eliminate it. He and his wife are proud and hopeful that he can make a positive contribution to the community. Soon various townspeople start to rally round, supporting Dr. Stockmann in criticizing the community leadership and encouraging the local press to write articles on the matter. Dr. Stockmann feels that he has strong support. However, soon Dr. Stockmann’s brother, Peter, who is the mayor, chief of police, and chair of the spa board, visits him, very upset. Why has this investigation been conducted behind his back? Peter argues that the water quality is not just a scientific problem, but also involves technical and economic considerations. The cost of repairing the spa will be very high, according to the mayor, requiring money that will need to be raised through increased taxes. Peter asks Dr. Stockmann to announce that his analysis is flawed, but Dr. Stockmann believes that he is right and has the people and press behind him. Inspired by the truth, he writes an expose for the local newspaper and gets support to publish it. Peter contacts the newspaper and argues that the claims about the spa will ruin the community, and support for Dr. Stockmann starts to ebb. Instead of Stockmann’s article, the local newspaper publishes a short announcement from the mayor that there is no problem with the spa. Dr. Stockmann’s next approach is to give a public meeting. After some delay, Dr. Stockmann starts his presentation but, having lost his focus, he instead presents his insights into how society works. Seized by inspiration, he states that the spiritual life of the community is completely poisoned. The whole audience turns against him; Stockmann is called an enemy of the people and the meeting breaks up. By the next day, the windows of Stockmann’s home have been broken by stones thrown by upset townspeople. The mayor, his brother, gives him a letter stating that he has been fired from his job at the spa. Stockmann’s daughter has lost her job as a teacher and the family has been evicted from their house. The whole society has turned against him. Still, he decides to stay and fight, even though the mayor and others recommend that he leave and later admit that he had made a mistake.

1 Introduction

Photograph 1.1 What is our relationship to the ocean?

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1 Introduction

Could Dr. Stockmann have taken a different route to improve the water conditions in the spa? The play indicates that he made a mistake by going behind the mayor’s back. Perhaps another alternative would have been simply to wait for people to become sick from the spa water? We don’t know what happens to Dr. Stockmann and his family, but Ibsen’s drama about a whistleblower is still relevant today when scientists or other experts try to communicate new results that come into conflict with society’s beliefs or economic and social interests. In 1962, Rachel Carson3 published her famous book Silent Spring about the increasing danger of using pesticides such as DDT to fight insects. The book was dedicated to Albert Schweitzer who had written: ‘Man has lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall. He will end by destroying the earth’. After publishing the book, Carson had to fight the agriculture industry and its government allies who sought to deny her message. Despite well-financed and bitter personal attacks, she was able to spread her warning about chemical pollution. Few books have made such an impact on the general public’s awareness of environmental degradation. In an afterword to the 1999 edition of Silent Spring,3 Linda Lear concluded that the world at the beginning of the new millennium was awash in thousands of new and more damaging chemicals, so it is important to ‘rediscover Rachel Carson and Silent Spring, and to take her warning and her hope to heart’. Alex Rogers (2019) made a passionate plea in The Deep: The Hidden Wonders of Our Ocean and How We Can Protect Them to protect the garden of the deep sea floor, only a very small fraction of which has been examined by scientists. Rogers stated that we are now at a critical historical juncture when we have a good understanding that much of the ocean is, in fact, dying. We face a choice between two very different oceans: one healthy and productive that is sustainably managed, or an over-exploited ocean continuing on its current trajectory of decline. The former requires, according to Rogers (2019), that nations immediately implement an effective agreement to slash carbon dioxide emissions, eliminate overfishing and destructive fishing practices, establish a global network of effectively enforced marine recovery and resilience zones, effectively reduce marine pollution, improve ocean management, take greater steps to map the ocean, the distribution of marine life, and how the ocean functions, and step up education about the ocean and its importance. Scientists can now communicate their findings through methods such as international assessment processes. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) conducts regular assessments of climate science and has greatly improved the communication between scientists and governments around the world, increasing awareness of global warming due to increased greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions

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(e.g., IPCC 2013, 2019). Similarly, assessments such as the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (2004) and the BALTEX Assessment of Climate Change for the Baltic Sea Basin (BACC II Author Team 2015) have created platforms where scientists and stakeholders can come together and improve climate change communication at the regional level. However, there is strong media competition in society, and ‘information overselling’ takes place in the triangle between policy, media, and science (von Storch 2012). Research programmes addressing climate change, eutrophication, alien invasive species, acidification, emissions (e.g., air pollution), plastic waste, and various anthropogenic toxins (e.g., arsenic discharged by industry and pharmaceutical residues by treatment plants) have trained scientists to compete for attention when conveying messages to society. There is also a clear mismatch between science communication and public understanding (Somerville and Hassol 2011), and terms can have different meanings for scientists and the public; for example, ‘uncertainty’ and ‘positive trend’ are interpreted by the public as meaning ‘ignorance’ and ‘good trend’, respectively. Another example is the concept of sustainability, which is often vaguely defined (World Ocean Review 2015). The sustainability concept comes from forestry, where it refers to resources being used mindfully so that their supply never runs out; today, however, the word is used as an ill-defined slogan in many contexts, and scientists have responded by trying to formulate concrete guidelines for sustainable living. The communication strategy of simply sharing more and more facts related to climate change is not enough to ensure emission reductions. Something else is needed that can add emotional resonance (Corbett and Clark 2017), connecting the factual messages with specific places and promoting changes in lifestyle. The humanities and art forms such as the visual arts, dance, theatre, literature, and film are modes of expression and communication that can imbue science with emotion and promote changes in attitudes. Emotions are often considered irrational, and scientists try to present their findings in objective ways without personal appeals, sometimes presenting themselves as honest brokers (Pielke 2007). However, research shows that emotional engagement is necessary for practical and moral decision-making and might be the missing link in effective communication about climate change (Roeser 2012). Presenting marine science without connecting it to human or societal values could even increase our alienation from the ocean. Human connections are based on emotions and intuitions, which are often suppressed in science but evident in most people’s thinking and expressed in dreams and the arts. Knowledge gained from the arts is associated with societal and human values and can inspire scientists to rethink their scientific problems, to wonder and seek meaning. However, presentday conditions often fail to connect scientific and artistic viewpoints. Instead, various scientific conclusions about environmental changes vie in a competition for attention, and most people lack the mental energy needed to sort out the messages and change their behaviour. Marine scientists are trained to explore the ocean and nature based on observations, experiments, and modelling. Most are aware that knowledge can be gained in other ways, but often have no time to investigate these avenues through alternative educational initiatives. However, knowledge progresses not only through analytical

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Photograph 1.2 Where does all this come from?

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thinking or management structures, but is often driven by other modes of thought and action, such as intuition, dreams, and play, which are incorporated into the arts. How science and the arts can be connected is explored in this book with the aim of rethinking human attitudes to the ocean. In the rest of this work, formatting will help distinguish the various ‘voices’. Discussion of the arts is presented against a grey shaded background and of the contributions of science without shading, both using unitalicized Times New Roman font. The ocean’s voice and poetry are presented in italicized Times New Roman. The photographs are meant to stimulate reflection on our emotions and thoughts about the ocean and humanity (Photograph 1.2). Appendix A follows the main text, giving some basic mathematical insights into ocean science. The main ideas in the book can easily be followed without digging into this appendix, though much of our understanding of the earth system is based on the mathematics outlined in it. Appendix B gives information on where to find basic marine science data and ideas on the Internet, and the Glossary defines the main terms and concepts used in this book.

References Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (2004) Impacts of a warming arctic: Arctic climate impact assessment. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. http://www.acia.uaf.edu BACC II Author Team (2015) Springer regional climate studies. Second assessment of climate change for the Baltic Sea Basin. Springer International Publishing, Cham, Switzerland Corbett JB, Clark B (2017) The arts and humanities in climate change engagement. In: Oxford research encyclopedia of climate science. Accessed https://oxfordre.com/climatescience/view/ 10.1093/acrefore/9780190228620.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228620-e-392 IPCC (2013) Climate change 2013: the physical science basis. In: Stocker TF, Qin D, Plattner G-K, Tignor M, Allen SK, Boschung J, Nauels A, Xia Y, Bex V, Midgley PM (eds) Contribution of working group I to the fifth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, New York, NY IPCC (2019) Summary for policymakers. In: Pörtner H-O, Roberts DC, Masson-Delmotte V, Zhai P, Tignor M, Poloczanska E, Mintenbeck K, Nicolai M, Okem A, Petzold J, Rama B, Weyer N (eds) IPCC special report on the ocean and cryosphere in a changing climate. In press Pielke RA Jr (2007) The honest broker: making sense of science in policy and politics. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK Roeser S (2012) Risk communication, public engagement, and climate change: a role for emotions. Risk Anal 32(6):1033–1040 Rogers A (2019) The deep: the hidden wonders of our oceans and how we can protect them. Wildfire, Headline Publishing Group, London, UK Somerville RCJ, Hassol SJ (2011) Communicating the science of climate change. Phys Today 64(10):48–53 UN (2018) The sustainable development goals report 2018. United Nations publication issued by the Department of Economic and Social Affairs. United Nations Publications, New York, NY von Storch H (2012) Sustainable climate science. In: Reckermann M, Brander K, MacKenzie B, Omstedt A (eds) Climate impact on the Baltic Sea: from science to policy. Springer, Berlin, Germany, pp 201–209 World Ocean Review (2010) World ocean review 1. Living with the oceans: a report on the state of the world’s oceans. Hamburg, Germany: Maribus gGmbH in cooperation with Future Earth, Kiel Marine Sciences. https://worldoceanreview.com/en/

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World Ocean Review (2015) Living with the ocean 4. Sustainable use of our oceans: making ideas work. Hamburg, Germany: Maribus gGmbH in cooperation with Future Earth, Kiel Marine Sciences. https://worldoceanreview.com/en/ World Ocean Review (2017) Living with the ocean 5. Coasts: a vital habitat under pressure. Hamburg, Germany: Maribus gGmbH in cooperation with Future Earth, Kiel Marine Sciences. https:// worldoceanreview.com/en/

Chapter 2

An Attempt to Connect to the Ocean

Abstract In this chapter, the first connection with the ocean is through a dream image of a dead seabird that had ingested plastics. The senseless killing of a seabird is the theme of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Coleridge, illustrating how killing an albatross brought isolation and death in life. The image of the dead seabird can be interpreted as a metaphor for our dysfunctional state of mind, with environmental problems being seen as mental problems. The chapter concludes that humans need help to think more broadly about the ocean. Keywords Ocean · Coastal seas · Climate change · Environmental change · Connecting science and the arts · Sustainability · Oceanography · Psychology · Philosophy Voice of the ocean: Do you think I can harbour all the rubbish you put into me without destroying our relationship? You really need to broaden your thinking. I feel so close to you, that yesterday I was really sad about current developments in our treatment of the ocean. Humans are stressing you, Ocean, in so many ways and new threats are emerging all the time (e.g., Derraik 2002). In an uncontrolled way, humans have developed ‘efficient’ fishing methods that destroy large parts of your marine ecosystems. Large areas of seagrass that play such an important role in marine ecosystems are being highly degraded (Unsworth et al. 2019). People are building along and changing your coastlines, all the while pouring nutrients and toxic substances into you, hoping that you can absorb it all. Today humans are changing the climate in an unpredictable way by massive emissions of carbon dioxide and other GHGs. Okay, you told me to broaden my thinking, but how? Sorry, I don’t know what you mean, as I got only a glimpse of the messages you were sending. People are increasingly disconnected from you, and urbanization exacerbates this, filling our minds with the idea that we are independent of you. Several initiatives are now ongoing to save your coastal seas. Scientists are trying to understand how the environment and humans are influencing you, but even though people are improving their understanding, you always seem to be the loser. Could you give us a hint about your feelings about our extreme environmental misbehaviour?

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 A. Omstedt, A Philosophical View of the Ocean and Humanity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36680-3_2

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Photograph 2.1 Chance to enter into a dialogue?

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Thanks for the dream image you, Ocean, sent me showing a seabird dying because it had ingested plastics. It was so immensely sad, and I immediately felt distressed and angry when I woke up. It reminded me of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s 1798 poem, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,4 about how the senseless killing of an albatross brought punishment in the form of isolation and death in life. I realize that marine ecosystems are not getting the management they deserve. People now speak of ecosystem services as things that can be calculated and whose value can be estimated. I wonder what services humans are providing for you? This might not be what you, Ocean, are trying to say. Perhaps the dream image of the dead bird should instead be understood as illustrating our dysfunctional state of mind, with humans lacking the inspiration or spirit needed to serve the environment? Perhaps marine problems are mental problems, and humans need to better understand themselves before they can restore the environment? Help me understand what is missing from our assumptions so I can better connect to you (Photograph 2.1).

References Derraik JGB (2002) The pollution of the marine environment by plastic debris: a review. Mar Pollut Bull 44(9):842–852 Unsworth RKF, McKenzie LJ, Collier CJ, Duarte CM, Eklöf JS, Jarvis JC, Nordlund LM (2019) Global challenges for sea grass conservation. Ambio 48(8):801–815

Chapter 3

Knowledge in Science and the Arts

Abstract In this chapter, we examine our knowledge sources and the ocean reminds us that we each have both a brain and a heart. Humans have many different knowledge sources and ways of thinking. One way humans process life situations is through slow, analytical, calculative, and rational thinking, i.e., the types of knowledge available in science and technology with their strengths to solve various kinds of technical problems. The other way of thinking is fast, intuitive, poetic or metaphoric, emotional, and may even involve dreams that communicate with us through images, i.e., the types of knowledge available in the arts. Connecting science and the arts is crucial, as blackand-white, atomistic thinking can be extremely destructive. The chapter highlights the importance of broad, respectful thinking and communication, and of realizing that science needs the arts in order to understand humanity and fully appreciate the ocean. Keywords Ocean · Coastal seas · Climate change · Environmental change · Connecting science and the arts · Sustainability · Oceanography · Psychology · Philosophy Voice of the ocean: I have been here so long, watching you struggle to survive and develop your societies, but still most of you are very narrow minded. Have you forgotten that humans also have hearts, and that emotions and intuition should connect all of you to me? Marine scientists are trained to explore the ocean based on observations, experiments, and modelling. The investigation of hypotheses that can be tested and falsified and the requirement that results be reproducible by other researchers are important aspects of analytical thinking and scientific knowledge. However, knowledge as understanding phenomena through experience, education, and emotions can be gained in many ways. Here ‘knowledge sources’ and ‘types of knowledge’ are used broadly, encompassing both conscious and unconscious knowledge, for example, as gained from theoretical or practical understanding but also in the form of unconscious information shaped by fantasy, emotions, dreams, and intuitions. How humans think is crucial and has been considered in philosophy since ancient times, often with the aim of finding out how we should live. Recent work by Kahneman (2011) has described two modes of thinking used when making decisions. The © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 A. Omstedt, A Philosophical View of the Ocean and Humanity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36680-3_3

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first mode is fast, intuitive, and emotional and the second is slow and analytical. When Wilson (2013) explained his long experience as a biologist to a young scientist, he stated that the ideal scientist first thinks like a poet and later works like a bookkeeper. By connecting analytical thinking to intuition, a deeper and broader understanding can be reached (Omstedt 2016). The word ‘connecting’ is central here, as humans often fall into black-and-white, atomistic thinking that can be extremely destructive in many ways. How knowledge sources such as science and the arts (including mythology) can be connected is illustrated in the Photograph 3.1 from Bornholm Island in the Baltic Sea. Starting from a scientific view, one can describe the picture as depicting a wall, a meadow, the sea, and the atmosphere. With scientific tools, one can go deeper and uncover new knowledge, for example, about the age of the wall or the season of the year by identifying the species blooming in the meadow. Scientific thinking can go even deeper, studying the physical and chemical processes connecting various aspects of the depicted objects, for example, the fluxes of heat, water, nutrients, and gases such as carbon dioxide, oxygen, and methane between the sea and the atmosphere. Scientific knowledge often concentrates on details and is useful in solving technical problems, particularly concerning phenomena and contexts in the physical world. Hammar (1997) divided human knowledge sources into two types: abstract, including analytical thinking, and sensitive, including intuition, emotions, and dreams. Based on the literature, she illustrated how sensitive knowledge can go much deeper in terms of human understanding, but affirmed that both types are needed, as reality cannot be fully captured by one or the other. Psychological insights into humans’ unconscious knowledge sources draw attention to unconscious intelligence that can surpass that of consciousness. This intelligence helps determine human actions, interactions between humans, and the basic experiences of reality (Vedfelt 2003). Looking at the Bornholm Island photograph from an artistic perspective, one can easily be emotionally touched, for example, by sudden feelings of happiness and awe at nature. Such aesthetic knowledge can inspire in a way that words cannot. It is also ambiguous, subjective knowledge that depends on the viewers themselves. Interpretation is free, which is a major advantage of such knowledge. Broadening one’s perspective to encompass mythology, including fantasy, fairy tales, and religion, one might discern a figure concealed in the wall, captured in it, but with an opening and light just behind her. The photograph can then be interpreted as a metaphor for our relationship with nature, i.e., that most of us are bound by traditional ideas but long for a new way of thinking to release us. Mythological knowledge often yields surprising answers that can inspire new ways of thinking, for example, giving hope that our misbehaviour towards the ocean can change. If the person concealed in the wall could realize that inspiration is close, she could be released by the potential for wonder.

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Photograph 3.1 How can we change our behaviour?

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Similarly, dreams can open up new ways of thinking that help us deal with difficult problems. Awareness of the connection between dreams and the creative process has a long tradition, starting at least as early as biblical stories in which dreams play a central role, and extending to psychoanalytic theory and practice as developed by Freud, Jung, and others. Freud’s theory of the unconscious was based on dream interpretation. Jung opened up the world of dreams to broader interpretation, illustrating how dreams could also capture the shadow or dark side of the human personality. Later, Ullman (1984, 1996) developed the dream group method, making dreamwork a free resource for everyone, without the need for expert participation. In this approach, dream metaphors are made meaningful to the dreamer through a creative group process that works as a natural healing system. Siivola (2011) and Stimson (2018) have reviewed the development of dream interpretation, identifying the strengths of using the dream group method. New brain research has broadened our understanding of sleep and dreams. Through electrical measurements of brain activity starting in the 1950s (Walker 2017), it has been possible to observe that sleep alternates between a dreaming phase, i.e., the rapid eye movement (REM) phase, and a phase with much less dream activity, i.e., the non-rapid eye movement (NREM) phase, also called the deep sleep phase, in cycles of about 90 min, ending with REM sleep at the end of the night’s sleep. Later, with the use of magnetic resonance tomography scanners, the three-dimensional distribution of brain activity could be measured, illustrating the interaction between memory and dreaming. During REM sleep (Walker 2017), the human brain recalibrates and adjusts emotions, helping us better interact with people by improving our emotional intelligence. A second important aspect of the REM period is that it supports the creativity that we need when solving problems. In contrast, NREM sleep helps us fix in our memory new experiences from the day before. Despite its importance, many people have insufficient and often poor-quality sleep. This was recognized as a serious human health problem in 1998 by the World Health Organization (World Health Organization 1998). Modern lifestyles with overly warm rooms, excessive food and drink, late evening Internet use, etc., all conspire to reduce sleep quality and duration (Walker 2017). Reliance on any single type of knowledge can lock us into reductive, black-andwhite thinking, and destructiveness. It is important for the survival and progress of society that we improve our ability for broad, respectful thinking and communication and realize that science needs the arts in order to understand the human (Photograph 3.2). Researchers are developing increasingly complex models of how humanity affects nature. Still, there are no models that can describe the complexity of ecosystems integrated with the human role, particularly concerning what might happen in the future. Combining different sources and types of knowledge, however,

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Photograph 3.2 How can science and the arts meet?

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gives us hope for the future, as it opens up new, more empathetic and intuitive ways of thinking. So now I have a new question for you, Ocean, that I hope you can help me answer: Do you think that the marine environment would be better off if humans strove to connect abstract thinking with emotions and intuition? It was so interesting to get your response through my inner sea to my quite fundamental questioning, and maybe I have missed your point. So what you are advocating is belonging as an alternative to alienation? Now I am completely lost. I know that art, such as poetry and literature, illustrates, gives form to our emotions and how we are connected to you. Emily Dickinson,5 for example, wrote: My River runs to thee – Blue Sea! Wilt welcome me? My River waits reply – Oh Sea – look graciously – I’ll fetch thee Brooks From spotted nooks – Say – Sea – Take Me! The poem conveys an intense longing for the sea, or did you inspire her to depict your own longing for humans? Yes, I agree, humans and the ocean belong to each other – humans cannot survive without you, Ocean, so people need to think about how we can reconnect. Maybe we should start by sleeping more and investing time in appreciating our belonging to you?

References Hammar S (1997) Euridikes visa: En bok om den sinnerliga tankekällan [Euridikes song: a book about the sensitive knowledge sources, in Swedish]. Tomas Hammars FoU förlag, Stockholm, Sweden Kahneman D (2011) Thinking fast and slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, USA Omstedt A (2016) Connecting analytical thinking and intuition: and the nights abound with inspiration. Springer briefs in earth sciences. Springer International Publishing, Cham, Switzerland Siivola M (2011) Understanding dreams: the gateway to dreams without dream interpretation. Cosimo Books, New York, NY Stimson WR (2018) Dreams for self-discovery. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, North Charleston, SC Ullman M (1984) Group dream work and healing. Contemporary Psychoanalysis 20(1):120–130 Ullman M (1996) Appreciating dreams: a group approach. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA Vedfelt O (2003) Ubevidst intelligens: Du ved mere end du tror [Unconscious intelligence: you know more than you believe]. Gyldendal, Copenhagen, Denmark Walker M (2017) Why we sleep: unlocking the power of sleep and dreams. Simon & Schuster, New York, NY

References

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World Health Organization (1998) Worldwide project on sleep and health: project overview. World Health Organization, Division of Mental Health and Prevention of Substance Abuse & World Federation of Sleep Research Societies, Geneva, Switzerland. Accessed http://www.who.int/iris/ handle/10665/64100 Wilson EO (2013) Letters to a young scientist. W.W. Norton & Company, London, UK

Chapter 4

Ice and Curiosity

Abstract The objective of this chapter is to establish communication between marine science and the arts by giving the ocean a voice. The first topic is the dynamics and thermodynamics of sea ice and related threats due to global warming. When seen from the geophysical scale, sea ice is a beautiful and fragile plastic–viscous material sensitive to changes in heat fluxes, snow, and wind. It protects the underlying water and serves as a medium for life for many marine species, from ice algae to polar bears. Should humans be fearful, their souls are frozen at the ultimately violent use of fossil fuels that has caused the melting of sea ice? The ocean responds by challenging us to cultivate our curiosity. The conclusion is that curiosity is a much better attitude towards the ocean than either fear or guilt. Keywords Ocean · Coastal seas · Climate change · Environmental change · Connecting science and the arts · Sustainability · Oceanography · Psychology · Philosophy Voice of the ocean: Look into me in new, imaginative ways and see the many beautiful species that not only survive but also play beneath the ice. The ocean protects its subsurface water layers and the marine ecosystem by producing ice. Ice alters the relationship with the atmosphere, forming a new interface that influences the exchange of momentum, heat, and gases (Photograph 4.1). When the surface water freezes, the water molecules change dramatically, becoming less dense than those of liquid water and inhibiting bottom freezing. The newly formed ice crystals are of pure water, as salt is excluded from the crystals. On a calm water surface, star-like crystals grow rapidly until they overlap each other and freeze together, forming a thin layer of ice. This type of ice can easily be bent by waves and by ice pressure to form a characteristic signature called finger rafting. In further ice formation, the ice crystals grow downwards to form columnar ice. Ice can form in a different way when winds are blowing over the water. Due to turbulence, the small initially formed ice crystals are mixed lower in the supercooled surface layer, forming frazil ice having a typical morphology of plates or discs with a diameter of millimetres (Martin 1981). As ice production continues, frazil ice forms a layer on the surface called grease ice, which is the raw material of other ice types, such as pancake ice and sea ice. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 A. Omstedt, A Philosophical View of the Ocean and Humanity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36680-3_4

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Photograph 4.1 What feelings can ice rouse?

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In the freezing ocean, many different forms of ice can be found, ranging from level ice, snow ice, and frazil ice to ridged ice, forming a complex environment that can interact with marine life in many ways. Sea ice can hinder and threaten shipping, as well as people living in areas of freezing water; for others, ice offers a way to travel rapidly and serves as a good platform for fishing and hunting. People living along ice-covered waters have long known that ice drifts (Leppäranta 2011). In the late nineteenth century, Fridtjof Nansen explored the ice drift in the Arctic Ocean by letting his vessel Fram become frozen into the ice pack. The Fram expedition (1893–1896) was an attempt to use sea ice drift as a service to enable travel to the North Pole. The expedition did not manage to reach the pole, but made many important observations. One observation was that the ice drift was not along the wind but deviated 20–40° to the right of the wind. Nansen explained this deviation as a result of the earth’s rotation. On Nansen’s suggestion, Ekman investigated these observations mathematically. In 1905, Ekman presented a mathematical formula describing wind-driven currents that also illustrated how surface currents in the northern hemisphere deviate to the right of the wind, rotating clockwise into deeper layers. This work formed the basis of modern theoretical oceanography and also has implications for atmospheric surface winds. Later, direct observations of ocean currents made from drifting sea ice (Hunkins 1966) provided clear evidence of the clockwise spiral structure of the surface layers. Consequently, the net water transport over this layer moves the water to the right of the wind in the northern hemisphere and to the left in the southern hemisphere. The effects on ocean circulation are great, forming the basis of geophysical fluid dynamics, which is the theoretical framework for the modern understanding of the ocean circulation. The growth and decay of sea ice are closely related to the heat exchange between the atmosphere, ice, and water. The temperatures above the ice surface and solar radiation are the main drivers from the atmosphere. Below the ice, warm water is the main source of melting. As the melting temperature of water depends on the salinity, the temperature at the ice–water interface is dependent on processes very near the ice surface, where molecular processes dominate (Svensson and Omstedt 1990). Mathematical models of sea ice thermodynamics have a long history, starting with the consideration of heat conduction through ice and snow. The first numerical model of sea ice thermodynamics was developed in the early 1970s (Maykut and Untersteiner, 1971), showing that sea ice thickness is quite sensitive to changes in heat fluxes. Considerable effort was later put into understanding the various involved fluxes and how they interacted with ice of different types and with snow. Sea ice with a snow cover has an albedo as high as 0.85, meaning that it reflects 85% of the sun’s radiation back into the atmosphere. Seawater has a much lower albedo of about 0.1, indicating that almost all of the sun’s radiation penetrates the open water. The icealbedo feedback mechanism may increase the melting of summer ice, as the absence of ice will increase warming in open water areas, therefore, increasing the melting of surrounding ice. Other stabilizing thermodynamic effects may mitigate this when the ocean is ice-covered for a sufficiently large fraction of the year (Eisenman and Wettlaufer 2009). How the albedo changes at the ice–atmosphere interface is still a major question, as is the heat flux from water to ice.

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Significant military tensions in the twentieth century increased the need for national control and monitoring of the freezing seas. Through large international programmes, drifting buoys were placed in the Arctic Ocean pack ice to study ice drift, and a long discussion started on how to classify sea ice as a material. This discussion established a basis for mathematical modelling and went on to consider whether sea ice should be modelled as a plastic, elastic, or viscous medium. What was this all about? From laboratory experiments, it is known that ice can display certain elastic properties when it is compressed or stretched. As when a rubber band is compressed or stretched, an elastic material becomes smaller when compressed and expands when the external deforming forces are released, returning to its original shape. A plastic material behaves differently, and under a certain pressure can no longer adjust to the external forces but breaks into pieces and can never return to its original shape. All fragile material, such as glass, behaves in a plastic way. Viscosity is a bulk property of a fluid that indicates how much it resists flow. Viscous behaviour differs and is typical of liquids, such as water, blood, and honey. When deformation begins due to external forces, a viscous material resists the flow, with a higher viscosity fluid resisting the flow more strongly. Wind-generated ocean currents move more easily than, for example, flow in honey, because honey is more viscous than water. We now need to put on our ‘geophysical glasses’ and consider the ocean from a larger-scale perspective. Examining satellite pictures reveals that sea ice is a fragile material that easily breaks up into leads and ridged ice. Ridged ice can never return to being level ice, and it is clear that sea ice behaves as a plastic material on a geophysical scale. We can also imagine that sea ice might behave as a viscous material due to internal ice friction. Internal friction in sea ice fields was already recognized by Nansen as an important aspect of ice drift, and the ideas of internal friction and plastic behaviour during ridging were later put together to form the geophysical sea ice models used in most climate studies today (Leppäranta 2011). Progress in large-scale thinking about sea ice has required a new, geophysical perspective, as looking at sea ice from the laboratory and molecular perspectives reveal different, smaller-scale aspects. Of course, these two perspectives are both valid, but to address different problems one must apply different perspectives. However, applying any single viewpoint may cause problems by neglecting many aspects that are often just lumped together in simplified statements. Scientists call these simplifications parameterizations, and they can hide aspects of nature and humans that are important under certain circumstances, such as climate change and the future. Today many are worried about melting sea ice and glacial ice due to global warming. Over the past decade, the Arctic Ocean’s ice cover has shrunk considerably during the summer, possibly also changing weather patterns. The reduction of summer ice cover in the Arctic Ocean has also occurred faster than projected in climate models, indicating that something is missing from our understanding. How melting occurs under the Antarctic ice sheets is still not understood, but glaciers are melting and rising sea levels are threatening coastal areas and islands.

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I am communicating to you on a dark night with a full moon and hoping for some intuitive guidance through my inner image-maker: Should we blame ourselves for our ultimately violent use of fossil fuels? You know that these fuels have been the basis of strong industrial development, and most energy consumed today still comes from oil and coal, allowing humans to grow in population and to travel safely on and over the ocean. Thanks for your quick response, and for sending such a nice dream image of what looks like snow-covered sea ice. The image is complex with many beautiful implications, and I ask myself what kind of emotions it evokes. Sea ice clearly piques my curiosity and makes me feel happy. Within pockets in sea ice, algae can find shelter in safe living conditions and wait for the sun to melt the ice, instead of being constantly buffeted around in dark waters—it is as if the ice has created a nursery for life. Sea ice is also a good place for seal pups to grow and be fed. The most beautiful ‘ice flowers’ or ‘frost flowers’ form on the ice surface, and whole ecosystems develop in and beneath the ice. Sea ice can guarantee survival for many marine species. Are you indicating that the melting of the sea ice cover we observe is due to warmer atmospheric temperatures, and that you, Ocean, are trying to save the ice through stabilizing effects? I get the sense that you are just trying to calm me down and bolster my curiosity about life. Curiosity produces such a nice feeling, as it inspires us to explore beyond our limitations, like scientists looking into unresolved questions, children exploring and playing, or what is now called the mental ‘flow state’ of effortless concentration and joy. The alternative is to amplify fear, disregard urgent challenges, and remain paralyzed in inaction. I understand your point—that curiosity is a much better attitude towards challenges such as climate change than are fear and guilt, and that you expect humans to change their attitudes and start collaborating with you (Photograph 4.2).

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Photograph 4.2 How can we encourage curiosity?

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References Eisenman I, Wettlaufer JS (2009) Nonlinear threshold behaviour during the loss of Arctic sea ice. PNAS 106(1):28–32 Hunkins K (1966) Ekman drift current in the Arctic Ocean. Deep Sea Res 13(4):607–620 Leppäranta M (2011) The drift of sea ice. Springer, Berlin, Germany Martin S (1981) Frazil ice in rivers and oceans. Annu Rev Fluid Mech 13(1):379–397 Maykut GA, Untersteiner N (1971) Some results from a time-dependent, thermodynamic model of sea ice. J Geophys Res 76(6):1550–1575 Svensson U, Omstedt A (1990) A mathematical model of the ocean boundary layer under drifting melting ice. J Phys Oceanogr 20(2):161–171

Chapter 5

Stratification, Turbulence, and Services

Abstract This chapter continues the dialogue between science and the ocean, starting with a concerned science view. A great fear is that global warming may reduce areas of sinking water, reducing ocean ventilation. The ocean responds with an image of a kelp forest—among the most beautiful and biologically productive marine ecosystems, and one that has served the ocean for many millions of years. Interpreting the kelp forest as a metaphor suggests a need to listen better and realize that humans can develop a society in a similar way, as a rich habitat for human growth with diverse groups of people in a healthy environment. For this to happen, human attitudes need to change to create a society that serves the ocean as kelp forests do. Keywords Ocean · Coastal seas · Climate change · Environmental change · Connecting science and the arts · Sustainability · Oceanography · Psychology · Philosophy Voice of the ocean: It is such a joy to serve life. Some of you speak of ‘green thumbs’, but I have ‘brown fingers’ that for millions of years have protected and served life. Listen carefully. So much in the ocean is about gravity and density. Gravity is an invisible force that pulls bodies together. It is easy to comprehend the great importance of the sun for the ocean. Without the sun, the first thing that would happen is darkness. The gravitational force from the sun would be gone, and the earth would start to move out into space. The temperature would drop dramatically, plant photosynthesis would stop, and the earth would become completely covered with very thick ice. Now, what about the moon? Without the moon, the nights would be much darker. The days and nights would be much shorter, as the moon slows down the earth’s rotation. Gravity also plays an important role in the fluid motion, and in the ocean it stabilizes or destabilizes water of different densities, with density being a measure of mass that can be calculated in this context from observations of salinity and temperature. In ocean water, one speaks of gravity being reduced by density differences within the mass of water: the water becomes stable if light water is above dense water and unstable if dense water is above light water, forming stratified and mixed layers within the ocean. In some important surface areas, the surface water becomes denser than the underlying layers due to cooling of the water and, during ice formation, © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 A. Omstedt, A Philosophical View of the Ocean and Humanity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36680-3_5

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through salt rejection. These areas, in the polar oceans, ventilate the deeper ocean by introducing oxygen-rich surface water to deeper layers. Sinking of surface water also occurs in coastal seas when, for example, cold winter winds blow over the Bay of Lyon in the Mediterranean. The ocean is stratified with layers of various densities that, through gravity, arrange themselves so that lower densities are found above higher densities. Motion in the water continually disturbs this stratification and, if strong enough, diminishes it (Photograph 5.1). Almost all of our early understanding of circulation between surface and deeper water layers was based on temperature and salinity observations. Looking into the ocean, one can find different water types (e.g., Sarmiento and Gruber 2006) coming from different areas, such as Arctic Ocean surface water in the deep layers of the Atlantic Ocean, indirectly illustrating the ocean circulation. Different water masses can be transported long distances, virtually throughout the world’s oceans. Surface water from the polar oceans flows into the deeper ocean layers, just as, for example, surface water from the Kattegat enters into the deeper layers of the Baltic Sea. Similarly, dense water from the Mediterranean Sea spills over the Gibraltar Strait into the Atlantic Ocean and sinks into the deeper layers there. The density differences on the vertical and horizontal axes make environmental and biological conditions quite stable in the oceans. If the ocean becomes warmer, due to climate warming, many things will change. The sea level will rise, sea ice and glacial ice may melt, and warmer water will profoundly influence the marine ecosystem. A major threat to the ocean would be if the deepwater ventilation was reduced. This could be very problematic, as the dense surface water injects oxygen into the deeper layers. Simultaneously, the water is mixed by turbulent eddies. Many research efforts have been dedicated to understanding turbulence, and much has been learned from laboratory studies. The energy to feed turbulence comes from shear currents, convection, and breaking waves, which make the flow unstable, chaotic, and random, including a whole range of eddies of various types. At the surface, turbulence is driven by winds and by changes in salt and heat content, but in deeper waters, the turbulence is driven by astronomical factors, such as the moon and sun, generating internal waves that break against bottom topography (e.g., Vic et al. 2019). This means that deepwater mixing does not depend on meteorological forcing but on the bottom structure and astronomical forcing. Deepwater mixing reduces the vertical stratification and facilitates ventilation by overturning the surface water. This may mean that the dense surface water, even if it becomes warmer, may still be able to ventilate the deeper layers as long as certain factors remain unchanged, factors such as the bottom topography, with its ridges and canyons, and astronomical forces such as the moon’s orbit. Could you, Ocean, add anything about this? Will climate warming make your deepwater anoxic or will tides generated by the moon help?

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Photograph 5.1 What feelings do ocean surfaces awake?

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Photograph 5.2 Motions at the surface and in the deep?

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I had been eagerly waiting almost a week for your reply, and then tonight I got a message. It is a bit difficult for me to interpret, as you only sent me a dream image of large brown seaweeds—kelp (Wernberg et al. 2019). The image is beautiful and I am gaining respect for this marine species that has been growing in seas for many millions of years. Interpreting the image as a metaphor reminds me of the freedom of swaying in the water currents while my soul is connected to the foundation from which everything grows. Perhaps you are trying to tell me to be more patient and to learn how to listen? Yes, there is a lot of noise in modern society and many voices competing for attention. Listening is not the same as hearing and is not easy, calling for availability, attention to what is communicated, and an open mind. This internal image, apparently of kelp, conveys something quite different from other messages I hear, many of which are about environmental problems that seem almost beyond human remedy as if civilization were about to collapse. Kelp can develop dense forests with high biodiversity and many ecological functions. They may be among the most beautiful and biologically productive habitats in the marine environment. Aha! You are signalling that people also can develop a society in a similar way, as a rich habitat for human growth with diverse groups of people in a healthy environment. I will try to listen more carefully and think more about how to serve the ocean in a sustainable way, as the kelp forest does. I know that what one pays attention to tends to grow in importance in one’s mind, so I need to be more patient (Photograph 5.2).

References Sarmiento JL, Gruber N (2006) Ocean biogeochemical dynamics. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ Vic C, Naveira Garabato AC, Green JAM, Waterhouse AF, Zhao Z, Melet A, de Lavergne C, Buijsman MC, Stephenson GR (2019) Deep-ocean mixing driven by small-scale internal tides. Nat Commun 10:2099 Wernberg T, Krumhansl K, Filbee-Dexter K, Pedersen MF (2019) Status and trends for the world’s kelp forests. In: Sheppard C (ed) World seas: an environmental evaluation. Volume III: ecological issues and environmental impacts, 2nd edn. Academic Press–Elsevier, London, UK, pp 57–78

Chapter 6

Currents, Circulation, and Vulnerability

Abstract The ocean is never at rest. Currents, eddies, and turbulence change its conditions for life at different time scales in a beautiful and complex manner. Human misbehaviour is clearly seen in the waste, including plastic, from various sources that is transported all over the ocean by these currents. Some believe that if we do not change our behaviour the ocean will eventually contain more plastic than fish. Instead of pristine ocean eddies, plastic will be accumulated by the currents into large surface ‘garbage patches’ that are very dangerous for sea birds and marine ecosystems. Without a better human connection to it, the ocean will become a biological desert mirroring our alienation and frozen emotions. The ocean’s response to this misbehaviour is to remind us of our wasteful lifestyles and of the need to improve our mental health. Both the ocean and humans are vulnerable, and we humans need the inspiration to change our behaviour. Keywords Ocean · Coastal seas · Climate change · Environmental change · Connecting science and the arts · Sustainability · Oceanography · Psychology · Philosophy Voice of the ocean: I sent you an image of a dying seabird with plastic in its stomach as a reminder of your mental health. You need to feed your internal seas in a better way. No one can survive without inspiration, and I can be a strong inspiration for you. Ocean water is always moving in currents, eddies, and turbulence. Through tides, sea levels rise and fall, generating tidal currents, which are strongest along the coasts. On a larger scale the surface currents are driven by winds, giving rise to the ocean circulation. The strong westerlies over the Atlantic Ocean generate a mean southwards transport—called an Ekman transport—of surface water; at the same time, the trade winds from east to west generate a northwards Ekman transport. These two types of surface transports together put pressure on the underlying currents, forcing them to move slowly towards the equator. In the southern hemisphere, the winds, again through an Ekman transport, generate a slow current towards the equator. This transport is called the Sverdrup transport after the Norwegian scientist Harald Sverdrup

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who published his discovery of it in 1947 (Cushman-Roisin and Beckers 2011). The equatorial water must somehow return to the polar regions, and the only possibility for this is via fast westerly boundary currents (Munk 1950; Stommel 1948), such as the Gulf Stream in the northern Atlantic Ocean, the Brazil Current in the southern Atlantic Ocean, and the Kuroshio Current in the northern Pacific Ocean. These boundary currents transport huge amounts of water around the world’s oceans, and the surface eddies forming around them are home to various ecosystems (Photograph 6.1). The largest current system is the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, which flows clockwise around Antarctica driven by strong westerly winds. This current protects the Antarctic ice sheet from warm water and makes westward sailing very difficult in the area. In the Arctic Ocean, the situation is different, with Pacific Ocean water inflowing through the Bering Strait and water outflowing to the western Atlantic Ocean. The throughflow is driven by the sea level difference between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, with the sea level being lower in the Atlantic due to more saline waters than in the Pacific. From satellite images, the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has produced beautiful films illustrating the general circulation and many eddies that are formed in the ocean. The modern era of oceanography started in the late nineteenth century with research vessel cruises making various marine observations. Notable among these was the Challenger expedition led by Charles Wyville Thomson, which sailed around the world between 1872 and 1876. Recently, there has been rapid development of new ocean observation methods, with the electronic and Internet eras giving rise to new approaches and observation platforms for studying the ocean, for example, satellites, free-drifting floats, bottom pressure gauges, and sensors mounted on diving animals such as elephant seals (Wuench 2015). However, marine measurements are often expensive and difficult to make and the ocean is still under-sampled in many respects. It is not only the tides and winds that drive currents, but also changes in the heat and salt content of ocean water, which affect its density. On a global scale, one speaks of the thermohaline circulation or the ‘great ocean conveyor’ (Broecker 1991), in which dense surface water sinks to deeper layers and eventually rises to the surface, but now in a completely different area. Sinking dense bottom water from Antarctica follows the continental shelf. Detailed bathymetric surveys show many channels or ‘corrugations’, small-scale local topographic features that influence and channel this flow of sinking dense bottom water (Muench et al. 2009), illustrating the increasing need for high-resolution bathymetric measurements to understand and model the oceans. Changes in temperature and salinity generate currents in most coastal seas, where rivers and net precipitation may also change the circulation, for example, as in the Baltic and Mediterranean seas. Wind, temperature, and salinity generate areas of vertical circulation. Near the coast, upwelling may bring nutrients from deeper water to the surface where plankton

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Photograph 6.1 Eddies?

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blooms. The opposite can also occur: vertical motion into the depths reduces nutrient levels and, therefore, suppresses plankton blooming at the surface. Winds may also cause vertical motion in the ocean with changes in wind direction from one place to another. This vertical circulation is crucial for the ocean, as it connects the deep water with the surface layers. Areas with upwelling are highly biologically productive, as nutrients from deeper layers are supplied to the surface layer, where light does not limit plankton growth. The opposite is true for downwelling areas, which are often poor in biological activity due to lack of nutrients. Ocean currents and circulation serve humanity by making transport easier and regulating the earth’s climate. The western boundary currents transport warm water poleward, for example, making the northern European climate much warmer than at corresponding latitudes on the Atlantic Ocean’s western coasts. Plastics in the ocean are an immense problem for marine ecosystems, and I feel great shame for us as humans. In addition to the ice fouled by sediment and terrestrial materials, oil spills, toxic substances, and garbage, some scientists now fear that by 2050 there will be more plastics than fish in the ocean. First we humans destroyed large fish stocks by extensive overfishing, and now we are filling the ocean with plastics and rubbish made from oil, natural gas, and coal—such criminal misbehaviour! The ocean currents transport these plastics all around the globe, accumulating them in large ‘garbage patches’ that endanger sea birds and other marine life. The advent of the plastic era, with the mass production of plastics starting in the 1950s, represents a major change, and we are increasingly realizing that the behaviour of plastic in terrestrial environments and the ocean is fundamentally unpredictable (Barnes et al. 2009). Is there no end to human stupidity? Why can we not behave more carefully? Formerly, people only used glass bottles and paper bags, but then suddenly we started to use vast amounts of plastic without any consideration of how to manage the resulting wastes. If I am not careful, today I will come home from shopping with many plastic bags, and my synthetic-fibre clothes generate microplastics when they are washed. Why can humans not be more inspired by the ocean and learn that without a better connection to it, the ocean will become a biological desert mirroring our alienation and frozen feelings? You, Ocean, seem very quiet, and I wonder if you can say anything more about our misbehaviour? I feel some connection, but could you come a bit closer? Now we have contact and I can almost imagine an image that might resemble a lobster? Lobsters are found in all seas, living on rocky, sandy, or muddy bottoms. They have had several hundred million years to evolve. The image awakens feelings of surprise and cheerfulness in me. The lobster with its strong claws reminds me of a dream in which I was bitten by a scorpion on my Achilles tendon. After

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Photograph 6.2 What creatures live here?

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that dream, I realized that the key to my internal life was my own vulnerability (Omstedt 2016). So maybe what you, Ocean, are saying is that awareness of plastics can allow us to learn more about the vulnerability of the ocean and humans, and that such pollution illustrates the disconnect between our way of living and our feeling for the ocean? (Photograph 6.2)

References Barnes DKA, Galgani F, Thompson RC, Barlaz M (2009) Accumulation and fragmentation of plastic debris in global environments. Philos Trans R Soc B Biol Sci 364(1526):1985–1998 Broecker WS (1991) The great ocean conveyor. Oceanography 4(2):79–89 Cushman-Roisin B, Beckers J-M (2011) International geophysics series: introduction to geophysical fluid dynamics: physical and numerical aspects, vol 101, 2nd edn. Academic Press–Elsevier, Waltham, MA Muench RD, Wåhlin AK, Özgökmen TM, Hallberg R, Padman L (2009) Impacts of bottom corrugations on a dense Antarctic outflow: NW Ross Sea. Geophys Res Lett 36(23):L23607 Munk WH (1950) On the wind-driven ocean circulation. J Meteorol 7(2):79–93 Omstedt A (2016) Connecting analytical thinking and intuition: and the nights abound with inspiration. Springer briefs in earth sciences. Springer International Publishing, Cham, Switzerland Stommel H (1948) The westward intensification of wind-driven ocean currents. Trans Am Geophys Union 29(2):202–206 Wuench C (2015) Modern observational physical oceanography: understanding the global ocean. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ

Chapter 7

Heat Balance, Water Temperature, and Interpretations

Abstract The heat balance that determines the earth’s temperature represents an interesting and complex interplay between the sun, the earth, and our behaviour. The ocean plays many important roles in this, such as being the earth’s most important heat storage sink. Evaporation from the ocean surface due to latent heat flux works like a steam engine, driving large-scale atmospheric circulation. Long-wave radiation emitted from the earth’s surface is partly reflected back from the atmosphere by the GHGs that blanket the earth, protecting it from cooling. The human impact comes from anthropogenic landscape change and an increase in atmospheric GHG levels, for example, from fossil fuel burning, which influences the long-wave radiation reflected back to the surface. Today it is frighteningly clear that humans are influencing the ocean through global warming and ocean acidification. Will humans be able to reduce global warming or not? The ocean sends an image of a red jellyfish swimming slowly to the surface, illustrating the potential of humans’ internal resources, such as intuition, dreams, and emotions, to foster a more accurate perception of our relationship with the ocean, in all its beauty, that so strongly supports our survival. Keywords Ocean · Coastal seas · Climate change · Environmental change · Connecting science and the arts · Sustainability · Oceanography · Psychology · Philosophy Voice of the ocean: Humankind thinks in dysfunctional, destructive ways. All of you often think in the wrong directions. I promise I will not seek revenge for your misbehaviour. You are your own worst enemies, but I will strongly support you however I can. The heat balance of the earth illustrates the interesting and important relationship between the ocean and the sun, even though they are almost 150 million kilometres apart. The distance between the earth and the sun is constantly changing in many ways. The earth rotates once in 24 h, with dark nights followed by bright days. It takes the earth a year to orbit one full revolution around the sun, with seasons that differ markedly in solar radiation. For example, the summer can be warm and dry while the winter can be cold and wet. Where I live in Sweden, the seasonal temperatures can differ by forty to fifty degrees. Both the earth’s daily rotation and annual orbit © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 A. Omstedt, A Philosophical View of the Ocean and Humanity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36680-3_7

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are counterclockwise, and the earth moves around the sun in an ellipse. As the earth moves around the sun, its tilted axis means that maximum solar radiation hits the earth at 23° north of the equator in June and 23° south of the equator in December, at what are called the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, respectively (Photograph 7.1). The relationship between the ocean and the sun is complex, as surface water in different regions comes in contact with more or less of the sun’s radiation at different times of the year. In addition, the earth’s orbit around the sun has varied in the past between nearly circular and mildly elliptical, while the tilt of the earth’s axis and other aspects of the earth’s motion have also changed. Some of these orbital changes are believed to have caused large climate variations. Ice core observations capturing the past million years indicate a 100,000-year cycle as a saw-tooth pattern of alternating glacial and interglacial periods. These climate variations, estimated to have ranged in temperature from –8 to +2 °C in Antarctica over the past 800,000 years (IPCC 2013, p. 400), are also documented in other parameters such as atmospheric carbon dioxide, ranging from less than 200 to 280 ppm, and sea level, which has varied by almost 100 m. Yet insolation alone cannot explain the strong 100,000-year cycle, suggesting that internal climatic feedbacks may also be at work (Abe-Ouchi et al. 2013). In this constantly changing climate, how does the ocean respond to the sun? It is clear that besides solar radiation, the most important aspect of the heat balance is the latent heat flux associated with evaporation from the sea surface. Through evaporation, the ocean interacts with the sun to create an enormous ‘steam engine’ that drives almost the entire atmosphere, most strongly in the equatorial regions. Radiation from the sun forms large convective cells in the tropics, generating surface winds blowing towards the equator and upper winds blowing towards the poles. In this Hadley circulation cell, the surface winds are called trade winds. The trade winds and associated currents were well known by early sailors travelling from Europe and Africa to America. They are still used in shipping as a service to speed up travel and make commercial transport cheaper. Due to the earth’s rotation, this circulation does not reach all the way up to the poles; instead, cyclones generated in the middle latitudes form the westerly winds that make eastward shipping and flights easier. Through solar radiation and evaporation, large-scale wind systems form in the atmosphere, and it is these winds that drive most of the ocean surface currents. The atmosphere and ocean provide many other such services to society that people take for granted. Moisture evaporated from the ocean forms clouds, which carry large amounts of water that later give rise to precipitation. Almost all precipitation on earth is attributable to water from the ocean, so no land ecosystems or humans can survive without support from the ocean. Also, the ocean with its huge heat storage capacity— thousands of times larger than that of the atmosphere—is the main reservoir for heat on earth. Solar radiation and latent heat flux are not the only heat fluxes. The ocean surface emits long-wave radiation as does the atmosphere, and the sensible heat flux between the ocean surface and the atmosphere is added to this. The long-wave radiation emitted from the ocean surface is then reflected back from the atmosphere due to the effect of GHGs. Evaporation from the water surface is the largest contributor to the

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Photograph 7.1 If this is a dream image what kind of feelings and symbols can be detected?

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natural greenhouse effect, but carbon dioxide, methane, and other gases also play a role (IPCC 2013, pp. 14 and 666), like a blanket, protecting the earth from cooling down. The increasing concentration of GHGs due to human burning of fossil fuels increases the reflection of long-wave radiation back from the atmosphere and is the reason for current global warming. I must tell you, Ocean, some more, as there has been such polarized discussion of long-term climate variation. It started with what was later called the ‘hockey stick’ graph (Mann et al. 1999), showing that over the past 2000 years, the global temperature had been slowly cooling until recently when suddenly it increased. If one plots the global mean temperature against time, one indeed sees something resembling a hockey stick in form. This graph generated lots of energetic scientific discussion. Some scientists strongly argued for the existence of climate warming due to increased anthropogenic emissions of GHGs. Others questioned this and raised several scientific questions: How can the global mean temperature be estimated when there are so few data observations from the ocean? Can one rely on the data and methods used? Are global mean temperatures a good measure of climate, as there are such large regional differences around the globe? Is this a clear sign that increased GHGs have changed the climate? These questions caused many scientific disputes, some of which were not that civil. In fact, it really illustrated how humans’ beliefs can easily become polarized, giving rise to interpersonal contempt. As scientific results need to be reproducible by other research groups, the dispute led to largely healthy outcomes. For example, the development highlighted the need for open data sources and transparent methods. Also, even though we have experienced several temperature changes over the past 2000 years, most reconstructed data illustrate an increasing global temperature in recent decades. Now, some scientists argue that we are in a new geological time era called the Anthropocene, starting when human activities began to have a significant environmental impact on the earth. Will the climate warming due to anthropogenic GHG emissions protect us from a new glaciation? Or will coming generations see a collapse of civilization due to the misuse and exhaustion of natural resources (Ehrlich and Ehrlich 2013)? Some argue that humanity needs to seek a new planet for future expansion as the earth’s resources are limited. Others warn that looking to science and technology for our salvation is very dangerous (Häggström 2016), and still, others warn of the danger of short-term alarmist rhetoric and pessimism (Rees 2018). I hope now that you, Ocean, can understand that I need support. Let me put it very clearly: Will alienation, contempt, and competition cause societal collapse? Does humanity need to export its bad management patterns to other planets, leaving you, Ocean, behind? How can we humans tackle the future? While waiting for some guidance from you, last night I had a dream about a blue ocean in which a beautiful red jellyfish was swimming slowly to the surface. I felt the emotions of both warm-heartedness and sadness. Jellyfish live in the ocean during a complex life cycle comprising both bottom-attached and free-swimming stages, and even exhibit a sleep-like state (Nath et al. 2017).

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Photograph 7.2 Unlimited?

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In the free-swimming ‘medusa’ stage, jellyfish sometimes have long tentacles covered with stinging cells. Jellyfish have been swimming in the ocean for hundreds of millions of years. If I try to understand what you, Ocean, are communicating to me via this dream, I think that the jellyfish image symbolizes my view of a healthy ocean. But I immediately also think of Medusa in Greek mythology, the monster with hair of snakes who transformed anyone looking at her face into stone. She was originally very beautiful, but after she was raped by Poseidon in Athena’s temple and was no longer a virgin, Athena punished her by transforming her into a terrible looking female. No wonder the jellyfish image evokes complex feelings. Is the jellyfish image a reminder that humans cannot see your beauty, but instead try to see you as a monster? In the Medusa tale, Perseus succeeded in fighting Medusa, cutting off her head while watching her reflection in a polished shield to avoid looking into her eyes. Metaphorically, the Medusa myth reminds us of the strong destructive forces in human minds, particularly those of men. Starting with rape, this male behaviour ended in a murder committed without looking in the victim’s eyes. Could you, Ocean, help me understand something more about this? Your fast response, reminding me of how human thinking often inverts reality and interprets things in a negative light, tells me that the beautiful red jellyfish should not be turned upside down and interpreted as Medusa. Instead, as it swims slowly in the beautiful blue ocean, it reminds me of human’s internal resources such as intuition, dreams, and emotions that surface from our unconscious, bearing new ideas and giving a more accurate perception of our relationship with the marine environment (Photograph 7.2).

References Abe-Ouchi A, Saito F, Kawamura K, Raymo ME, Okuno J, Blatter H (2013) Insolation-driven 100,000-year glacial cycles and hysteresis of ice-sheet volume. Nature 500(7461):190–193 Ehrlich PR, Ehrlich AH (2013) Can a collapse of global civilization be avoided? Proc R Soc B Biol Sci 280(1754):20122845 Häggström O (2016) Here be dragons: science, technology and the future of humanity. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK IPCC (2013) Climate change 2013: the physical science basis. In: Stocker TF, Qin D, Plattner G-K, Tignor M, Allen SK, Boschung J, Nauels A, Xia Y, Bex V, Midgley PM (eds) Contribution of working group I to the fifth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, New York, NY Mann ME, Bradley RS, Hughes MK (1999) Northern hemisphere temperatures during the past millennium: Inferences, uncertainties, and limitations. Geophys Res Lett 26(6):759–762 Nath RD, Bedbrook CN, Abrams MJ, Basinger T, Bois JS, Prober DA, Goentoro L, et al (2017) The jellyfish Cassiopea exhibits a sleep-like state. Current Biology 27(19):2984–2990.e1–e3 Rees M (2018) On the future: prospects for humanity. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ

Chapter 8

Water Balance, Salinity, and Belonging

Abstract The water balance essential for transporting freshwater and maintaining ocean salinity is investigated here. The atmosphere transports freshwater towards the poles, and the ocean closes the cycle by transporting it back towards the equator. Most of the world’s freshwater is found in the ocean. Salt comes from rocks on land and, through weathering and volcanic activity, becomes dissolved in water and transported by rivers to the ocean. The water balance and salinity are closely connected through evaporation and precipitation. Freshwater and salt are the two most important factors for life. The concerned scientist asks the ocean how modern humans can better connect to the ocean. The best way is to realize that what is going on in human bodies is also going on in the ocean. Humans and the ocean belong to each other through many important processes and from the beginnings of life itself. Keywords Ocean · Coastal seas · Climate change · Environmental change · Connecting science and the arts · Sustainability · Oceanography · Psychology · Philosophy Voice of the ocean: Alienation is slowly growing like poison in your body and will disconnect you from me and from life. The opposite is to belong and know that you are not alone. Most of the global freshwater content is found in the ocean and its coastal seas. This may sound strange, but almost all freshwater ultimately returns to the ocean as river water and is recycled through evaporation from the ocean surface. While the atmosphere transports freshwater polewards, the ocean transports it in the opposite direction and maintains the global water balance (Schmitt 1995). This is a great example of the interaction between the atmosphere and the ocean. Fresh, clean water is crucial to all life, including humans. There is an increasing demand for freshwater for drinking, hygiene, sanitation, food production, and industry. The supply of freshwater is critical in many arid regions and in many other places during warm periods, such as the summer of 2018 here in Sweden. Artificial desalination of saltwater from the ocean is an important process that simultaneously produces freshwater and salt. Freshwater and salt are two main components of life and both are available from the ocean in almost unlimited amounts—which is potentially important, given that much © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 A. Omstedt, A Philosophical View of the Ocean and Humanity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36680-3_8

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of the world’s population lives in water-stressed countries. Desalination plants operate worldwide and the number of such installations is growing rapidly (Elimelech and Phillip 2011) (Photograph 8.1). Evaporation, closely related to latent heat flux, is an important process maintaining the water balance. As moist air rises, it cools and condenses to form clouds. The clouds and moisture are transported around the earth and return freshwater to the surface as precipitation. Another important component of the water cycle is the net precipitation, which is the difference between precipitation and evaporation. Net precipitation is often positive at high latitudes while it is negative at lower latitudes. When net precipitation is positive over land, most returns to the ocean via rivers, though some freshwater also returns through groundwater flow. When swimming along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, for example, one can sometimes feel cold water coming up from below. This groundwater from artesian sources is often colder than the surrounding seawater in the summer. Summed, net precipitation and river runoff mean that the Baltic Sea gains about one metre of new freshwater per year while the Mediterranean Sea loses about one metre per year. This has significant consequences for the salinity and circulation of water in these two water bodies. Ocean water has a mean salinity of 35 g of salt per kilogram, with slightly higher and lower values found around the ocean—differences of great importance for the water circulation and exchange between different areas. The water balance determines the salinity of the ocean; for example, the Atlantic Ocean is more saline than the Pacific Ocean because the trade winds transport freshwater from east to west. The ‘steam engine’ of evaporation from the ocean not only drives atmospheric circulation, causing the winds that drive the ocean currents but also concentrates and dilutes the ocean surface salinity by means of evaporation and precipitation, respectively. Salt has a long history of being one of the most valuable chemicals for life and for food preservation (Kurlansky 2002). It exists in enormous amounts in the ocean, originating from rocks on land and, through weathering and volcanic activity, becoming dissolved in water and transported by rivers to the ocean. The time it takes for ocean water to mix from surface to bottom is about 1000 years, but the main chemical elements of sea salt, chlorine and sodium, have a much longer accumulation time. This implies that salt has the same chemical composition throughout the ocean. The accumulation time for the chemical components of salinity is in the range of 100 million years—a long time, but still about 40 times less than the ocean’s age of about 3.8 billion years (Sarmiento and Gruber 2006). Other chemical components entering the ocean have other accumulation times and are, therefore, distributed in the ocean in different ways. Life started to develop in the ocean as phytoplankton. From that beginning, life has developed into innumerable forms, including humans, and given rise to many different ecosystems. There are many ideas about the origins and evolution of life, but you, Ocean, was there all the time. Could you say something about how modern humans can better relate to you?

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Photograph 8.1 How long will it last?

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Photograph 8.2 Where is the light?

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Thanks, Ocean, for the new image you sent to my inner sea, which looks like several rivers interconnected like tree branches or roots. This image awakens fascination and curiosity in me. Now I see that some of the depicted rivers are red. Red can symbolize something warm or important or emergent. Perhaps the image symbolizes human arteries, veins, and blood? Blood transports nutrients and waste products through the body in a sophisticated way. It transports oxygen, salt, and other chemical components all around our bodies and keeps us alive and healthy. So maybe you are saying that humans have their own rivers and ocean inside their bodies and, therefore, are similar to you in many ways? Do you mean that people should be better able to connect to you by likening what is going on in their bodies to what is going on in the ocean? And that humans and the ocean belong to each other as life started in the ocean? (Photograph 8.2).

References Elimelech M, Phillip WA (2011) The future of seawater desalination: energy, technology, and the environment. Science 333(6043):712–717 Kurlansky M (2002) Salt: a world history. Walker Publishing Company Inc, USA Sarmiento JL, Gruber N (2006) Ocean biogeochemical dynamics. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ Schmitt RW (1995) The ocean component of the global water cycle. Rev Geophys 33(S2):1395– 1409

Chapter 9

Oxygen, Life, and Partnership

Abstract This chapter describes another essential chemical for life and for many biogeochemical processes, namely, oxygen. The oxygen concentrations in the ocean are declining, causing the spread of oxygen-free water. The reasons for this decline seem to be climate warming, increased nutrient transports from land, and phosphorous-leaking anoxic sediments. The question is how to protect the ocean from dying from respiratory distress. The ocean sends an image looking like a small octopus, perhaps one of the smartest animals on earth and with a different type of intelligence from that of humans. Can humans learn something new from the ocean and become more open-minded? The smart solution is to establish partnerships. Keywords Ocean · Coastal seas · Climate change · Environmental change · Connecting science and the arts · Sustainability · Oceanography · Psychology · Philosophy Voice of the ocean: You think you are intelligent but only take account of analytical thinking. Try to become wise—humanity has many complex problems, and to solve them you need to be open minded and not narrow minded. All life started in the ocean but it took a long time before animals arrived. The earth is about 4.5 billion years old and life started about 3.8 billion years ago as single-celled organisms in water. Animals arrived many years later, or about 1 billion years ago. Via evolution, animals developed and proliferated, and about 600 million years ago animal evolution split into two branches, one for humans, fish, and other vertebrates and another for invertebrates, including molluscs such as the octopus. All the early stages of evolution took place in water: the origins of life, the birth of animals, the evolution of nervous systems and brains, and the emergence of complex bodies (Godfrey-Smith 2016). Oxygen is fundamental for ocean life and for marine biogeochemical processes. Warm water cannot take up as much oxygen as can cold water, suggesting that climate warming will reduce the ventilation of deeper layers of the ocean. We can clearly observe that the oxygen content of the ocean has been declining and that areas of anoxic (i.e., without oxygen) bottom water are spreading (Breitburg et al. 2018; Diaz and Rosenberg 2008). This declining oxygen content is partly due to climate warming and partly due to increased eutrophication caused by the transport of © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 A. Omstedt, A Philosophical View of the Ocean and Humanity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36680-3_9

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nutrients from land. Also, as deepwater becomes anoxic, phosphorous starts leaking from the ocean sediments, increasing eutrophication and forming a positive feedback loop. In the ocean, oxygen is transported to deeper parts through sinking water and is consumed through the decomposition of organic matter. This can easily be observed in coastal regions, for example, around the Baltic Sea, where during autumn and winter storms dense surface water from the Kattegat flows into deeper Baltic Sea layers and ventilates the water. However, most of the time, only the upper deep layers are ventilated, and only now and then are the deepest layers ventilated. Ventilation of other ocean areas occurs in a similar way when surface water becomes heavy enough to sink (Photograph 9.1). From your last image, Ocean, you indicated that you and humanity could connect if people thought more about their own bodies, implying that the spread of anoxic waters could, for example, be conceived in terms of the terrible feeling we get when we have difficulty breathing. When forest fires break out during hot and dry weather on land (e.g., the Californian wildfires of 2018), people must actively intervene to protect people, their houses, and animals. Such human action is the only way to mitigate the effects of such forest fires. Perhaps the same applies to the spread of anoxic waters—people must do something and not just stand passively by. Could pumping oxygen-rich surface water to the deeper layers be an alternative that should be tested (Stigebrandt and Gustafsson 2007), just as during aircraft emergencies masks supply oxygen to all passengers?) Thanks for the new image that I received tonight. I had difficulties sleeping, as it has been such a warm summer here in Sweden. It took me a long time to fall fitfully asleep, and when I woke up it was with feelings of frustration and uneasiness. The image retained from my dreams was that of a small octopus with many arms. I know that there are many species of octopus and that fossils indicate they have been in the ocean for at least 100 million years. Octopi are observed in large numbers throughout the ocean, from surface water to extremely deep layers. They breathe through gills and even through their skin, extracting oxygen directly from the water. Octopi swim gracefully and are among the most intelligent animals on earth, with three hearts, nine brains, eight strong arms, and no skeleton, just a soft elastic body that can change colour and shape. They have evolved in a separate branch of the tree of life from humans and developed their own, unique intelligence. New experimental studies show that octopi can solve many problems that confound even chimpanzees. They can shoot bursts of ink to defend themselves and conceal their escape. They can change colour and texture to hide on sea bottoms of many different types and can transform themselves to mimic other marine species. They can even experience emotions. Through observation and thinking, octopi can adapt to numerous situations, giving them access to flexible life strategies (Godfrey-Smith 2016). They have good memories and use them when solving problems in various situations, and can even learn from one another.

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Photograph 9.1 Learning new things?

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In the future, could a new intelligent life form evolve and take over from humans, one not coming from space but one whose origins are in the presentday ocean? Or could people learn to cooperate with other species, managing the ocean so that sufficient food is available for both octopi and humans? I need to think a bit deeper now about why you have sent me this image. My feelings are of frustration and embarrassment, but the octopus could represent deep-ocean mystery and subconscious resources, and its eight arms could symbolize the many possibilities for unforeseen developments. I feel troubled that you need to remind us of our internal resources and that so many alternatives are available near at hand. We do not need to plan for an alternative planet. Instead, you are indicating that in the ocean and in our minds there are unknown expanses to explore and new forms of partnerships to establish.

References Breitburg D, Levin LA, Oschilies A, Grégoire M, Chavez FP, Conley DJ, Zhang J, et al (2018) Declining oxygen in the global ocean and coastal waters. Science 359(6371):46, eaam 7240 Diaz RJ, Rosenberg R (2008) Spreading dead zones and consequences for marine ecosystems. Science 321(5891):926–929 Godfrey-Smith P (2016) Other minds: the octopus, the sea, and the deep origins of consciousness. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, NY Stigebrandt A, Gustafsson BG (2007) Improvement of Baltic proper water quality using large-scale ecological engineering. Ambio 36(2–3):280–286

Chapter 10

Plankton and Courage

Abstract After discussing oxygen, we turn to the plankton that forms the basis of the marine food web. There are many different forms of plankton and with large genetic variation, giving plankton great resistance to environmental changes. Plankton provides extraordinary ecosystem services by taking up carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen, as well as serving as the basis of higher trophic levels. The connection to the ocean in this chapter is through the epic poem The Kalevala, inspiring us to review our knowledge sources and reminding us that humans were born in the ocean. We learn that plankton is the basis of life in the ocean and that storytelling and dreaming constitute the basis of mental health. Keywords Ocean · Coastal seas · Climate change · Environmental change · Connecting science and the arts · Sustainability · Oceanography · Psychology · Philosophy Voice of the ocean: You need to create new global heroic poems that can strengthen your mentality and support your courage. New stories are needed that can reconnect the ocean with the internal creative ocean in yourself. In the ocean, there are two main types of plankton, phytoplankton and zooplankton—plant-like and animal-like plankton—that form the basis of the marine food web. Phytoplankton growth is an important and interesting process transforming chemical components such as water, carbon dioxide, and nutrients into life. This growth takes place in surface water with the help of solar radiation, as phytoplankton contain the green pigment chlorophyll, as do land plants. All phytoplankton groups use photosynthesis to convert light energy into chemical energy. Plankton growth releases oxygen and is, in fact, one of the major sources of oxygen in the atmosphere and the ocean (Sarmiento and Gruber 2006). When phytoplankton dies and decomposes the process is reversed, and oxygen is used, but nutrients and carbon dioxide are released into the water. All organisms on earth are made of five major elements, i.e., hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and phosphorus, which are found in approximately constant proportions in the ocean. This simplification is used as an approximation in most ecosystem models. Silicon exists in the ocean as silicate and can explain the dominance of diatoms in many regions of the ocean. Diatoms © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 A. Omstedt, A Philosophical View of the Ocean and Humanity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36680-3_10

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are one of the most diverse and important groups of phytoplankton (Malviya et al. 2016). Marine organisms also contain sulphur and more than 50 trace elements. From maps of surface chlorophyll measured from satellites (e.g., Sarmiento and Gruber 2006, p. 103), one can identify areas of high plankton activity and areas of low plankton activity, i.e., almost without chlorophyll. These areas reflect the general circulation in the ocean, where productive areas are related to upwelling and ‘desert’ areas are associated with downwelling current systems (Photograph 10.1). Also called blue-green algae, cyanobacteria are a special type of phytoplankton, named for their colour, that may have been the first algae to produce oxygen on earth, although they are prokaryotes (i.e., unicellular organisms that lack membrane-bound organelles and a defined nuclei) and not eukaryotes (i.e., organisms whose cells have a nucleus enclosed within membranes) like other algae. They are nitrogen-fixing and do not need phosphorus when they grow. By drilling through several metres of ice and diving into the untouched Lake Untersee in Antarctica, Andersen et al. (2011) discovered that cyanobacteria could grow and generate conical stromatolites on the lake bottom. This indicates that cyanobacteria can survive in extreme cold and icecovered conditions and produce oxygen with just a little light. Through several billion years of cyanobacteria blooming, the atmosphere and water gradually accumulated oxygen and biomass. Discoveries in the 1980s of very small plankton, such as the Prochlorococcus species, have changed our understanding of the marine food web (Chisholm et al. 1988). Using new measurement methods, it was possible to identify this new group of extremely abundant plankton species that belongs to the cyanobacteria group and contributes greatly to the uptake of carbon dioxide and release of oxygen. Phytoplankton such as diatoms exists globally in a large number of diverse species, and their small size means that they can easily travel long distances, borne by currents. One would, therefore, expect them to be well mixed throughout the ocean, but they display large genetic differences even within limited water bodies (Godhe and Rynearson 2017). One reason for this is that they have a lifecycle that includes a long-term resting stage, allowing them to accumulate in sediments that provide refuge during adverse conditions (Sundqvist et al. 2018). Their large genetic variation gives plankton great resistance to environmental changes, meaning that they form a stable basis for the marine food web. The epic poem from Finland, The Kalevala,6 originated in oral tradition but has since been transcribed. The first chapter describes how everything began and how the great singer Väinämöinen was born. In the beginning, Ilmatar, the goddess of the air and nature, decided to enter the water, where she became pregnant by the sea. After many years and many complications, she gave birth to Väinämöinen, the bold bard about whom The Kalevala tells many stories. Did you, Ocean, inspire me to look into The Kalevala? Yes, I believe you did, because when I was waking up this morning, the poem came to mind immediately. How can I interpret this poem? The Kalevala originated in oral

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Photograph 10.1 What does it take to listen?

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epic poetry collected in Karelia, eastern Finland and north-western Russia, by Lönnrot in the 19th century. It forms one of the most important works in Finnish literature and provided a basis for national identity and strong inspiration for national independence. You, Ocean, have told me that humans need to think in a broader way and consider not only the scientific perspective. If I think scientifically about this poem, I immediately reach an impasse when it comes to a virgin giving birth—how can that be possible? I know that there are several mythical stories about virgins giving birth, so I’ll try to think a bit deeper, about the birth of life and phytoplankton growth. Seen from this perspective, the poem is a story about how life started. Approaching this poem from an artistic perspective opens up many possibilities to adapt it in literature or make beautiful graphic art about the symbolic meeting between air and water that it conveys. Let me also consider the mythological source of knowledge. Here I am pleased with the depiction of the divine union between air and water, teaching us that by changing perspectives—when Ilmatar leaves the sky and descends to the sea—something new and unexpected can be born. The sources of knowledge in science, the arts, and mythology follow different logics, and in the arts and mythology, an understanding of metaphors is central. If the varied interpretations of reality from these different sources are combined, one can gain a deeper understanding of the world. Von Storch (2015) argued that the arts can support science by helping scientists to overcome their dogmatism. The Kalevala can help us realize that people need to refresh their perspectives before new ideas can be born. New knowledge, insights, and viewpoints can help thaw our hearts, generating happy people who enjoy life, which includes sharing science, songs, and storytelling. The poem also reminds us that something very new was created when life was born in you, Ocean. Science explores concrete reality in detail, employing convincing methods and processes. Artists work largely with their intuition, often alone and grappling with the limits of their abilities. Storytelling and dreaming are marginalized in our experience but can improve mental health and inspire people to change their behaviour, just as The Kalevala inspired cooperation, bringing together the Finnish people. Are you, Ocean, saying that storytelling and dreaming are as important for human’s mental health as planktons are for you? I like this vision which gives me the courage to transmit your message to others.

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References Andersen DT, Sumner DY, Hawes I, Webster-Brown J, McKay CP (2011) Discovery of large conical stromatolites in Lake Untersee, Antarctica. Geobiology 9(3):280–293 Chisholm SW, Olson RJ, Zettler ER, Goericke R, Waterbury JB, Welschmeyer NA (1988) A novel free-living prochlorophyte abundant in the oceanic euphotic zone. Nature 334:340–343 Godhe A, Rynearson T (2017) The role of intraspecific variation in the ecological and evolutionary success of diatoms in changing environments. Philos Trans R Soc B Biol Sci 372(1728):20160399 Malviya S, Scalco E, Audic E, Vincent F, Veluchamy A, Poulain J, Bowler C et al (2016) Insights into global diatom distribution and diversity in the world’s ocean. Proc Natl Acad Sci 113(11):E1516– E1525 Sarmiento JL, Gruber N (2006) Ocean biogeochemical dynamics. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ Sundqvist L, Godhe A, Jonsson PR, Sefbom J (2018) The anchoring effect: long-term dormancy and genetic population structure. ISME J 12:2929–2941 Von Storch H (2015) Visiting artist researchers as therapists for climate scientists. J Sci Commun 14(01):C05

Chapter 11

Ecosystems and Listening

Abstract This chapter highlights the conflict between human activity and marine ecosystems. The decline of various marine species due to human impact goes back more than a millennium but accelerated markedly in the 1950s. Hemingway wrote about the shift from sustainable to unsustainable attitudes towards fishing in his 1952 novel The Old Man and the Sea. Beautiful living marine resources are now mismanaged as if humanity and the ocean no longer had any relationship with each other. The ocean responds with disappointment at human lifestyles and attitudes, and invites us to listen better and realize that marine resources could give much more back if managed properly. Keywords Ocean · Coastal seas · Climate change · Environmental change · Connecting science and the arts · Sustainability · Oceanography · Psychology · Philosophy Voice of the ocean: I am so disappointed with humans’ greedy approach to my beautiful living resources. You must listen better to me and to your hearts, and realize my limits in supporting you. If you listen carefully to me, all my resources can be much better used and, yes, I loved the dories. The north-western Atlantic Ocean, where the cold Arctic water meets the warm Atlantic water, is a biologically rich area with abundant phytoplankton, zooplankton, and krill and historically excellent fishing conditions. For many centuries, the Grand Banks of Newfoundland were the site of large-scale fishing efforts. From small dories, fishers could catch cod, haddock, and other species of fish, which were then brought to the main fishing vessel that could serve a large number of dories and fishers. Little changed for several centuries and the Grand Banks remained an area with abundant marine resources. Each dory was generally handled by one or two fishers, who filled it with fish caught using hooks and lines. Rowing and sailing these boats, about five to six metres long, required great skill, and the fishers were well known for handling these boats under difficult and dangerous conditions, sometimes during fog when they lost contact with the mother ship. The first documented single-handed sailing across the Atlantic was by Alfred Johnson in 1876 using a five-metre dory. His voyage went from Gloucester, Massachusetts, USA to Abercastle, Wales and lasted 58 days (Kurlansky 1999). © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 A. Omstedt, A Philosophical View of the Ocean and Humanity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36680-3_11

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The history of fishing and the decline of various marine species, such as sea otters, sea cows, seals, whales, and cod, go back more than a millennium (Roberts 2007), and declines of individual species often prompted exploration for new lands and marine resources to exploit. For four centuries, whaling was the first global industry, and following intensive commercial hunting, by the late nineteenth century, large areas had been hunted to the point of commercial extinction. From historical studies, it is easy to trace how humans altered the land and marine environment in destructive ways without any consideration of the environment, upholding the illusion of inexhaustible ocean resources (Photograph 11.1). The cod with its low fat and high protein concentrations was the most important North Atlantic fish for many centuries and, through salting and drying, could be preserved for a long time. New trawling methods were used starting in the 1950s, and by 1992, cod were so drastically reduced in number and in size, that Canada declared a halt to cod fishing. At the time of the fishery closure, the cod biomass was just 1% of earlier levels. The collapse of the Grand Banks cod stock was a fact. The reduction in fish size also meant that there were fewer large female cod able to produce sufficient numbers of eggs. The collapse was due to massive overfishing that was only possible through technological developments, environmental ignorance, and greed. The old method of cod fishing using Grand Bank dories was sustainable, but modern trawling is not . For over a century, there has been concern about overfishing. In 1902, the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) was formed to coordinate marine research in the North Atlantic and develop fish stock assessments. Since the early 1900s, most of the world’s seas have become overfished (Jackson et al. 2001). This parallels the rapid technological development that has seen the launch of fishing vessels that can cover larger areas, deep-freezing capabilities that allow fishing fleets to stay at ocean longer, echo sounding and new trawling techniques that allow more efficient fishing, and new processing forms, such as fish fingers, that make fish consumption more convenient. The long-term ecological change due to fishing and related drivers (Möllmann and Diekmann 2012) has caused many problems, such as reduced fish stock abundance and reduced size distribution. Defining baselines based on currently available stocks, therefore, strongly underestimates earlier abundances when the ocean was much healthier (Klein and Thurstan 2016). The world per capita fish supply is still increasing due to rapid growth in aquaculture, which provided almost half of all fish for human consumption as of 2014. The state of the world’s wild fish stocks has not improved overall, and about 30% of commercial fish stocks have been estimated as being fished at an unsustainable level and therefore overfished (FAO 2016). Compounding the situation, extensive illegal fishing makes the accurate estimation of fish stocks difficult (Kornei 2018). As much as 80% of the world’s catch may not be assessed, and illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing—or simply IUU fishing—is an increasing problem (Christensen 2016). Illegal fishing includes the capture of sharks that are thrown overboard after cutting off their fins and the large by-catch thrown overboard as they are undersized or of non-target or unapproved species.

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Photograph 11.1 Who owns the ocean?

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In 2018 the World Wild Foundation launched a programme to save the Baltic Sea cod. The stock of this fish is declining, probably for many reasons, such as overfishing, inappropriate fishing methods, and eutrophication. Today this fish population seems to have collapsed and only small Baltic Sea codfish are available. Another example of stock decline is the collapse of North Sea herring in the latter twentieth century, a case that still raises questions about the management of a single stock and its relationship to the whole ecosystem (Dickey-Collas et al. 2010). The future of the ocean is closely related to the future of fish stocks, and there is a critical need to rethink our fisheries. Never before have the world’s fish stocks been exploited as intensely as over the past 50 years (World Ocean Review 2013). Nonindustrial fishing is done from small craft, often in developing countries. Industrialized fishing methods can immediately process, pack, and deep-freeze vast amounts of catch, exploiting global fish stocks far beyond sustainable levels. Fishing has also penetrated into deeper ocean layers, and trawling nets are now used at depths as great as 2000 metres with severe effects on, for example, cold-water coral reefs and seamount habitats. In The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway, the shift from sustainable to unsustainable fishing had already been imagined in 1952, when the first edition was published (Hemingway 1952, p. 19): He [i.e., the old man] always thought of the sea as la mar which is what people call her in Spanish when they love her. Sometimes those who love her say bad things of her but they are always said as though she were a woman. Some of the younger fishermen, those who used buoys as floats for their lines and had motorboats, bought when the shark livers had brought much money, spoke of her as el mar which is masculine. They spoke of her as a contestant or a place or even an enemy. In science, abrupt and rapid shifts in marine ecosystems, called regime shifts, have been increasingly reported (Möllmann and Diekmann 2012). Thurstan et al. (2010) illustrated how a long-term perspective is needed when evaluating industrial overfishing. They were able to analyse bottom trawl catches landed in England and Wales dating back to 1889, and demonstrated a 94% reduction in landings per unit of fishing power. Bottom-living fish species and consequently the bottom ecosystem have undergone profound changes since the nineteenth century. Josefson et al. (2018) compared observations of bottom ecosystems made by C. G. J. Petersen in 1884–1886 in the eastern Kattegat with recent data. Their study found that the depth distribution of bottom-dwelling organisms has changed substantially, mainly due to bottom trawling rather than eutrophication.

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In the northern hemisphere, rapid shifts in fish stocks occurred simultaneously in the late 1980s and early 1990s, possibly indicating the effects of other large-scale drivers in addition to fishing, such as atmospheric circulation changes, eutrophication, and invasions of alien species. Currently, multiple criteria are used in classifying stocks as collapsed, and there is a need to develop uniform criteria (Yletyinen et al. 2018). What are your emotions, Ocean, when you witness how humans have mismanaged your resources and your coastal seas in such a disappointing way? It is as if humanity and the ocean no longer have any relationship with each other, maybe not since the 1950s. Why are humans so stupid? Beautiful marine ecosystems and delicious fish should, and can, be harvested sustainably. This clearly illustrates the need for a shift in our thinking about how to improve the management of marine resources. I really liked the old man Santiago’s conception of the ocean, and preferred the time when small boats fished selectively, but now fishing is industrially structured and scaled. Maybe I have forgotten that the earth’s population has grown and needs a greater supply of food. What do you say, Ocean? You seem to be quiet. My head is full of noise, with many clamouring voices from everything that I have been talking and reading about. When I stop thinking so much, my intuition awakens and I can more easily connect to you. To be quietly receptive, I may need to improve how I listen. Listening is difficult when my head is full of competing voices and ideas. Maybe I need to concentrate more on our dialogue? Listening requires that I pay closer attention to the human–ocean relationship. I cannot read all the interesting new books or watch all the exciting new movies, so instead I need to improve my ability to choose where to pay attention to. As an academic, I am trained to speak out and win arguments, but now I need to listen better and ask open-ended questions. That also means that I need to better understand my inner self. Inside me, there has always been a strong insistence on my right to live and participate in the world. Maybe this is what it is all about for you as well? I need to learn more about listening to discern the opportunities you offer and realize that marine resources could yield much more if managed properly.

References Christensen J (2016) Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing in historical perspective. In: Schwerdtner Máñez K, Poulsen B (eds) Perspectives on oceans past: a handbook of marine environmental history. Springer Science, Business Media B.V, Dordrecht, The Netherlands, pp 130–154

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Dickey-Collas M, Nash RDM, Brunel T, van Damme CJG, Marshall CT, Payne MR, Simmonds EJ (2010) Lessons learned from stock collapse and recovery of North Sea herring: a review. ICES J Mar Sci 67(9):1875–1886 FAO (2016) The state of world fisheries and aquaculture 2016: Contributing to food security and nutrition for all. FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Department, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome, Italy Hemingway E (1952) The old man and the sea. Jonathan Cape, London, UK Jackson JB, Kirby MX, Berger WH, Bjorndal KA, Botsford LW, Bourque BJ, Warner RR (2001) Historical overfishing and the recent collapse of coastal ecosystems. Science 293(5530):629–638 Josefson AB, Loo L-O, Blomqvist M, Rolandsson J (2018) Substantial changes in the depth distributions of benthic invertebrates in the eastern Kattegat since the 1880s. Ecol Evol 8(18):9426–9438 Klein ES, Thurstan RH (2016) Acknowledging long-term ecological change: The problem of shifting baselines. In: Schwerdtner Máñez K, Poulsen B (eds) Perspectives on oceans past: a handbook of marine environmental history. Springer Science, Business Media B.V, Dordrecht, The Netherlands, pp 11–30 Kornei K (2018) Illegal seafood supply chains can now be tracked by satellite. Earth Space Sci News 99 Kurlansky M (1999) Cod: a biography of the fish that changed the world. Vintage Books, New York, NY Möllmann C, Diekmann R (2012) Marine ecosystem regime shifts induced by climate and overfishing: a review for the northern hemisphere. In: Woodward G, Jacob U, O’Gorman EJ (eds) Advances in ecological research, vol 47. Academic Press, London, UK, pp 303–347 Roberts C (2007) The unnatural history of the sea. Shearwater Books-Island Press, Washington, DC Thurstan RH, Brockington S, Roberts CM (2010) The effects of 118 years of industrial fishing on UK bottom trawl fisheries. Nat Commun 1:15 World Ocean Review (2013) Living with the ocean 2. The future of fish: the fisheries of the future. Maribus gGmbH in cooperation with Future Earth, Kiel Marine Sciences, Hamburg, Germany. https://worldoceanreview.com/en/ Yletyinen J, Butler WE, Ottersen G, Andersen KH, Bonanomi S, Diekert FK., Stenseth NC (2018) When is a fish stock collapsed? BioRxiv, preprint first posted online 24 May 2018

Chapter 12

Non-living Ocean Resources and Hope

Abstract After studying humans’ effects on living marine resources, we now turn our attention to non-living marine resources. Mineral oil formed from phytoplankton illustrates the close connection between living and non-living resources and represents the most important fossil energy source today. The search for new oil and gas sources is intense, and increasing interest in ocean exploration for oil and gas, even in deep ocean areas, entails many environmental risks. Will humans’ hunger for oil and gas destroy the ocean or be satisfied in an environmentally wise and sustainable manner? The ocean reminds us that deep inside all of us there is both light and shadow, and that we can easily give into destructive desires. A mental change is needed, encouraging humans to start working together to generate global cooperation and hope. Keywords Ocean · Coastal seas · Climate change · Environmental change · Connecting science and the arts · Sustainability · Oceanography · Psychology · Philosophy Voice of the ocean: Find the gold inside yourself and give it away to improve your mental health. Self-absorption and greed will turn you into monsters. Working together with all will give hope. Ocean water is a unique mixture of almost all chemical elements, which are contributed by rivers, the atmosphere, and volcanic activity and in concentrations varying by many orders of magnitude. The non-living marine resources include minerals that are mined, such as salt, sand, gravel, phosphate, diamonds, manganese, copper, nickel, iron, and cobalt, and that are drilled for, such as crude oil and gas hydrates. Oil exploration and mining of the ocean floor involve great opportunities and risks. Future exploitation for marine minerals in international waters is regulated by the International Seabed Authority (ISA). Along coastal states the conditions are less regulated, although all states need to follow the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The global carbon cycle, with its organic and inorganic parts, plays a fundamental role in the earth system. If the global carbon cycle were in balance, the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the pH in the ocean would be constant. Instead, an imbalance is generated by the strong human impact caused by fossil fuel burning, industry, © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 A. Omstedt, A Philosophical View of the Ocean and Humanity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36680-3_12

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and land-use change. Fossil fuels generated from biological life over hundreds of millions of years are now being used in a much briefer time. The direct human impact on the earth’s system can be illustrated by two important observations, both showing that the system is imbalanced (IPCC 2013, p. 12). The first observation is that the carbon dioxide level is increasing in the atmosphere. At the beginning of the industrial era, circa 1750, the atmospheric carbon dioxide level was about 277 parts per million (ppm), but it reached 405 ppm by 2017 (Quéré et al. 2018) and is still increasing. The other observation is that the pH of the ocean surface water is declining. The ocean’s absorption of the carbon dioxide produced by humans is an important service that is provided at the price of ocean acidification (Gattuso and Hansson 2011). In the global carbon budget averaged over the 1959–2017 period, 82% of the total emissions were from fossil carbon dioxide emissions and 18% from land-use change. Of these total emissions, 45% stayed in the atmosphere while 24% and 30% were taken up by the ocean and the land, respectively (Quéré et al. 2018). On a decadal time scale, global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels have increased by a factor of three from the 1960s to 2008–2017 (Photograph 12.1). More than 98% of the carbon of the atmosphere–ocean system is stored in the ocean as dissolved inorganic carbon (Zeebe and Wolf-Gladrow 2001). The key to understanding the ocean carbon system is knowledge of ocean water carbonate chemistry. This chemistry involves dissolved inorganic carbon comprising three components—carbon dioxide, bicarbonate, and carbonate—the sum of which is defined as the total dissolved inorganic carbon. In addition, total alkalinity, defined as the excess of proton acceptors (i.e., hydrogen ions of weak bases) over proton donors (i.e., strong acids) gives important information about the carbonate chemistry. One can say that the total alkalinity is a measure of the seawater’s capacity to buffer changes in the acid–base balance. The main process controlling the cycling of total alkalinity is the biological production/dissolution of mineral calcium carbonates (Sarmiento and Gruber 2006). Calcium carbonate production takes place in the surface water when phytoplankton with shells (e.g., diatoms) grow, and dissolution occurs when the plankton mineralize while sinking to deeper layers and in the bottom sediments. At the ocean surface, total alkalinity changes mainly due to evaporation and precipitation, as does salinity, allowing for a close relationship between total alkalinity and salinity. This is not the case in coastal seas such as the Baltic Sea, where the total alkalinity is controlled by river inputs from calcium-carbonate-rich areas in the southern part and calcium-carbonate-poor areas in the north (Mueller et al. 2016). Mineral oil forms mainly from large amounts of phytoplankton that sink to the ocean bottom as dead material, while coal and natural gas form mainly from land plants (World Ocean Review 2014). The dead phytoplankton accumulates on the seabed, mixing with sand and clay to form a sludge that slowly, under high pressure, is transformed into claystone and later, at high temperatures, into oil. Mineral oil is a mixture of many different components and, after processing in refineries, is used in products such as petrol, diesel, and plastics. Humans’ energy needs seem insatiable, and as yet untouched ocean areas may soon be explored for oil deposits (World Ocean Review 2014). Globally, energy consumption is increasing, and the International

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Photograph 12.1 Is this the future ocean?

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Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that energy consumption will likely continue to grow in the coming decades. Mineral oil is the most important fossil energy source, followed by coal and natural gas, and all these sources together accounted for 87% of global energy consumption in 2011; hydropower, nuclear energy, and renewable energies supplied the remaining 13%. Global society is thus heavily dependent on fossil fuel that formed over hundreds of millions of years. The search for new oil and gas sources is intense, with increasing interest in ocean exploration. Off-shore drilling for oil and gas has been done for over a century, starting at shallow beaches and progressing to deep (over 400 m) and ultra-deep (over 1500 m) ocean basins, and today off-shore production accounts for 37 and 28% of global oil and gas production, respectively. Using new technology, it is now possible to detect oil and gas at much greater depths, and new potential oil and natural gas fields have been detected in much deeper ocean waters. Now I need to recall my internal sea and ask you, Ocean, whether humans’ hunger to explore and exploit the ocean will finally destroy us all. I know that social science (e.g., Poteete et al. 2010) presents many examples of how to overcome the ‘tragedy of the commons’ by working together, but how can this be done for the good of the ocean? Yesterday when I went to bed I could not sleep. My head and body were full of energy just waiting for guidance. Several hours after finally sleeping, I woke up with an image in my mind of a deep canyon with something in it sparkling like gold. Reflecting on this image, I was surprised and astonished. The gold reminded me of the ring from the fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings by Tolkien,8 a story about the fight between good and evil. When writing this famous novel, Tolkien was influenced by the effects of industrialization and world wars. My feelings awaken for the brave Frodo and the unhappy Gollum in this story. Frodo got the ring from his uncle Bilbo. Gandalf the wizard told Frodo about the evil Lord Sauron who needed the ring to realize his full destructive power. Gandalf counselled Frodo to take the ring away from his home in the Shire. Frodo eventually realized that this was not enough, and that the ring needed to be destroyed. He embarked on a long and dangerous journey to the far east of Middle Earth. On the verge of destroying the ring in the Cracks of Doom of the volcano Orodruin, Frodo could not resist the ring’s power and claimed the ring for himself by putting it on his finger. At that moment, Gollum, the ring’s previous owner, reappeared and, in a fight, bit off Frodo’s finger with the ring still on it. Gollum fell into the fire of the Cracks, destroying the ring and with it the power of Sauron. Why do I get this inspiration from the image? Maybe you, Ocean, are trying to tell me that deep inside all of us there is a light part represented by Frodo

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but also a shadow part represented by Gollum. Both parts can easily give into destructive desires and strive only for their own satisfaction giving no hope for the future. Instead, looking at this as a metaphor, the Lord of the Rings illustrates how the greedy nature in our minds needs to be destroyed to save the world. Our search for fossil energy as we start to explore the deep ocean and polar ocean will entail huge environmental risks that most humans are unaware of. Long-term strategies for marine conservation, clean energy, and the sustainable use of marine resources are needed at both the global and local levels: (World Ocean Review 2015). Most importantly, humans need to start working together, using their creativity to find new attitudes that can give hope for the better use of the ocean.

References Gattuso J-P, Hansson L (2011) Ocean acidification. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK IPCC (2013) Climate change 2013: the physical science basis. In: Stocker TF, Qin D, Plattner GK, Tignor M, Allen SK, Boschung J, Nauels A, Xia Y, Bex V, Midgley PM (eds) Contribution of working group I to the fifth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK and New York, NY Le Quéré C, Andrew RM, Friedlingstein P, Sitch S, Hauck J, Pongratz J, Zheng B (2018) Global carbon budget 2018. Earth Syst Sci Data 10(4):2141–2194 Mueller JD, Schneider B, Rehder G (2016) Long-term alkalinity trends in the Baltic Sea and their implications for CO2 -induced acidification. Limnol Oceanogr 61(6):1984–2002 Poteete AR, Janssen MA, Ostrom E (2010) Working together: collective action, the commons, and multiple methods in practice. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ Sarmiento JL, Gruber N (2006) Ocean biogeochemical dynamics. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ World Ocean Review (2014) Living with the ocean 3. Marine resources: opportunities and risks. Maribus gGmbH in cooperation with Future Earth, Kiel Marine Sciences, Hamburg, Germany. https://worldoceanreview.com/en/ World Ocean Review (2015) Living with the ocean 4. Sustainable use of our oceans: making ideas work. Maribus gGmbH in cooperation with Future Earth, Kiel Marine Sciences, Hamburg, Germany. https://worldoceanreview.com/en/ Zeebe RE, Wolf-Gladrow D (2001) Elsevier oceanography series, CO2 in sea water: equilibrium, kinetics, isotopes, vol 65. Elsevier, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Chapter 13

Human Interaction and Vision

Abstract The previous chapter treated the need to work together; now, we look at the growth in population and change in living conditions over the past centuries. Before 1800, the global population was less than a billion, whereas today it is about 8 billion and still growing. Coastal regions have been extensively explored and are becoming home to large and growing populations. Will global civilization collapse as people work disparately in various directions without addressing how to achieve healthy and sustainable coordinated management of the ocean? The ocean reminds us that we need a shared vision if we are to cooperate to improve living conditions for all. The UN Sustainable Development Goals for 2030 articulate such a vision, one that could help us develop a much better relationship with the ocean. Keywords Ocean · Coastal seas · Climate change · Environmental change · Connecting science and the arts · Sustainability · Oceanography · Psychology · Philosophy Voice of the ocean: Anything could happen in the future, and without a vision you may lose what is most important in life. Everything is dependent on how you interact. Your great challenge is to support one another and nature. If you do so, your carrying capacity will grow with benefits for all of us. The services the ocean provides to humanity are immense and cannot be measured in money. The ocean is the basis of all life on earth, supporting it in numberless ways. The ‘ecosystem service’ concept is misleading as it goes only one way and does not capture the intimate two-way relationship between the ocean and humankind. It is better to speak of ecosystem functions, and humans too should reflect on their own functions with respect to the ocean. The ‘value’ of the ocean is also difficult to estimate, and how it should be calculated is still contentious (World Ocean Review 2015). For example, estimating the cost of ocean acidification and evaluating its effect on fisheries, marine ecosystems, coral reefs, etc., is impossible today due to the many complex processes involved. Human treatment of the ocean makes for a sad story of unsustainable destructiveness. Most of us actually know better, but persist in regarding the ocean as an infinite resource that can be exploited without acknowledging its limits (Photograph 13.1). © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 A. Omstedt, A Philosophical View of the Ocean and Humanity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36680-3_13

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Photograph 13.1 What does our footprint look like?

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Human interaction with the ocean is as long as the history of humankind. For most people, the ocean is conceived as blue, infinite, and dangerous, but for sailors it is a place of hard work and great challenges. The ocean and inland waterways have historically been the natural links between people of different backgrounds. Many people around the world, in history and today, obtain their incomes and livelihoods along the world’s coasts. Poets, writers, and painters have filled our imaginations with marine images of amazement, glory, and horror. This is obvious in many books, outstandingly so in Greek mythology and literature, as in The Odyssey by Homer. Another example is the beautiful painting by Botticelli of the birth of Venus, illustrating how Venus arrives at the shore after her birth in the ocean. In 1895 Captain Joshua Slocum embarked on a solo sailing voyage around the world aboard a rebuilt 11-m oyster sloop, Spray. In 1900 he published Sailing Alone Around the World, which has been an inspiration for many sailors and adventure seekers (Slocum Slocum 1900). He started by rebuilding Spray over 13 months in 1893 and 1894. From 1885 to 1898 he sailed across the Atlantic twice, passed Cape Horn through the Strait of Magellan, and crossed the Pacific Ocean. He visited Australia and South Africa and crossed the Atlantic Ocean once more before returning to Massachusetts as the first person to sail around the world alone. Slocum’s book describes many sights and situations typical of sailing on the ocean, such as blue waters, fog, storms, doldrums, the danger of running aground, solitude, navigation problems, and pirates. His journey demonstrated that, in the late nineteenth century, it was possible to travel around the world single-handed. The ocean could no longer be conceived as infinitely large. Swedish author Vilhelm Moberg7 has given a voice to the emigrants who travelled from Sweden to America to build better lives. In four volumes published between 1949 and 1959, he described one family’s life as emigrants, immigrants, and settlers. The story starts in 1840 and describes the hard farming conditions facing a rural Swedish family. After the death of a daughter, the family realized that they had no future if they stayed in Sweden. Karl-Oskar and Kristina needed to escape poverty and hunger and find a new place where their work would pay off and secure a future for their children. The family sailed from the Swedish city of Karlshamn on 14 April 1850, reaching New York City in midsummer 1850. Karl-Oskar and Kristina settled in Minnesota and started building their home in America where the farming conditions were much better, but with new challenges related to American culture. They never returned to Sweden as travelling across the oceans was not easy at that time.

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Over the past two centuries, sea transport has evolved from sail-powered ships, fishing vessels, and smaller boats, through steamers running on coal and wood, to ships and fishing vessels fuelled by petroleum and natural gas. Shipping capacity has simultaneously increased exponentially (Stopford 2009) and trade routes have been shortened due to the building of, for example, the Suez (1869), Panama (1914), and Kiel (widened 1907–1914) canals. The rapid industrialization after World War II increased fishing efforts with the development of industrial-scale fishing methods and intense competition. Many nations industrialized their fisheries, replacing smallscale fishing boats with fewer but larger government-subsidized ships (Finley 2016). Today there are about five million fishing vessels, with the largest number being in Asia. As of 2014, 64% of reported fishing vessels were engine powered (FAO 2016), but most of these vessels are under 12 m long and only 2% are longer than 24 m. Parallel to the history of ocean travel, piracy of various kinds has occurred. Ancient jurists considered pirates ‘the enemy of all’ (Heller-Roazen 2009). Maritime piracy through robbery or violence has the goal of stealing cargo and other valuable items or property. Piracy increased in 2018, particularly in the vicinity of West Africa (International Maritime Bureau 2018). In the early 1800 s, the world population was about one billion people. Population growth was slow up to 1900, but by 1950 the global population had reached 2.5 billion. After 1950, population growth increased dramatically, and today almost eight billion people live on the earth, mostly in Asia (published online at OurWorldInData.org). By the end of the twenty-first century, the world’s population is expected to reach about 11 billion. The rapid population growth since the beginning of the twentieth century is associated with a dramatic decrease in mortality. The share of world population dying as children up to five years old has decreased from 43% in 1800 to 4% in 2017. At the same time, worldwide life expectancy has more than doubled since 1900 and is now approaching 70 years. Concurrently, the number of births per woman has fallen from about six in 1800, dropping dramatically since 1965 to its current number of about 2.5; in the future, it is expected to fall further. Human population statistics are easily available from Our World in Data, an online publication that shows how human living conditions are changing. Rosling et al. (2018) emphasized the importance of using updated statistics and keeping two thoughts in mind: the present situation and the past trend. The world population has increased considerably since the nineteenth century due to improvements in medicine, water and food treatment, child care, and education. Over the past 20 years, the number of people living in extreme poverty has halved. It must be regarded as a great success for humanity that today almost eight billion people are living under much better conditions than far fewer people did earlier. A major conclusion from looking into population statistics is that social development that gives poor people better incomes and education is the best way to reduce population growth (Rosling et al. 2018). The existence of accurate and updated databases open to all is also a major human achievement that the Internet and improved computer technology have made possible in recent decades.

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Most people today live in urban rather than rural areas. The United Nations estimates that 55% of the world’s population resided in urban areas in 2018, and by 2050, 68% may well live in urban areas. By way of comparison, in 1950, 30% of the population was urban. Coastal regions are home to large and growing populations. Tokyo is the world’s largest city with an agglomeration of 37 million people, followed by Delhi, Shanghai, Mexico City, and Sao Paulo. Several megacities with populations over 10 million people are situated in coastal regions. Urban and rural living conditions are very different, with increasingly unequal living conditions in terms of education and social services (Photograph 13.2). It is morning and I am hiding in my room, reflecting on whether global civilization will collapse or not. I woke up feeling grief, recalling our dialogue. As a scientist, I can name many threats facing the world, any of which could lead to collapse. My mind is filled with so many clamouring voices. Scientists are working disparately in various directions without addressing how to develop healthy and sustainable coordinated management of the ocean. This reminds me of the biblical story of the Tower of Babel. All the world’s people spoke the same language, so they decided to work together and build a tower reaching heaven. God intervened, declaring that humankind should speak multiple languages and no longer understand each other sufficiently to cooperate on such an audacious project. Will our compartmentalized and specialized knowledge production result in a similar increase in fragmentation, or will it support integration that enables concerted action? I have been thinking quite a lot about our last contact and I have tried to keep silent and listen to my internal sea. But I need to tell you something more. It is clear that humans have made enormous progress over the past 200 years, but the price of this progress has been so high! Human population growth can be looked at as a sign of increased wealth and human creativity. However, there are also large destructive changes in the world that many are worried about and are trying to address. The most ambitious vision is summarized by the United Nations in its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (UN 2018). The vision and goals are urgent and challenging, touching on matters such as a world free of poverty and hunger, good health, high-quality education, clean water, clean energy, decent work, sustainable industrialization, innovation, resilient infrastructure, reduced inequality, sustainable cities, responsible consumption and production, climate action, sustainable use of the ocean and land, and peace and justice. These represent conditions for a better life, including human rights and dignity, for all people. The vision and goals need to be understood as a whole, not individually, and are really worth striving for. So many goals and such an important mission require a completely new way of thinking––can you hint at anything that might be missing from these goals? You, Ocean, were silent, but now you are sending me a completely unexpected image. It looks like a boat anchored by an island, tethered to it by a

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Photograph 13.2 What is our vision?

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rope. Could you say something more? No, you are silent and perhaps waiting for my reaction. If I reflect on the image, I feel love for the boat and am happy at how well it is integrated with the nature around it. If this image is meant for us, for humanity and you, the boat could be a metaphor for a better life, floating safely on the ocean. Maybe you mean that we need to add trust and pride to the United Nations’ vision that, like an ark, can bear us to a safer future? The image makes me very happy and inspires my hope that humans can develop a much better relationship between themselves and the ocean in the future.

References FAO (2016) The state of world fisheries and aquaculture 2016: contributing to food security and nutrition for all. Rome, Italy: FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Department, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome Finley C (2016) The industrialization of commercial fishing, 1930–2016. In: Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Environmental Science. Retrieved from https://oxfordre.com/environmentalscience/ view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199389414.001.0001/acrefore-9780199389414-e-31 Heller-Roazen D (2009) The enemy of all: piracy and the law of nations. Zone Books, Brooklyn, NY International Maritime Bureau (2018) IMB piracy report 2018. Published online by ICC Commercial Crime Services. Retrieved from https://www.icc-ccs.org/index.php/1259-imb-piracy-report2018-attacks-multiply-in-the-gulf-of-guinea Rosling H, Rosling Rönnlund A, Rosling O (2018) Factfulness: Tio knep som hjälper dig att förstå världen [Factfulness: ten reasons we’re wrong about the world-and why things are better than you think]. Natur och Kultur, Stockholm, Sweden Slocum J (1900/2017) Sailing alone around the world. Dover edition originally published 1956; reprinted 2017. Dover Publications, New York Stopford M (2009) Maritime Economics, 3rd edn. Taylor and Francis, Hoboken, NJ UN (2018) The sustainable development goals report 2018. United Nations publication issued by the Department of Economic and Social Affairs. United Nations Publications, New York World Ocean Review (2015) Living with the ocean 4. Sustainable use of our oceans: Making ideas work. Hamburg, Germany: Maribus gGmbH in cooperation with Future Earth, Kiel Marine Sciences. https://worldoceanreview.com/en/

Chapter 14

Climate Change, Human Influence, and Harmony

Abstract The previous chapter discussed the unprecedented rise in population growth over the past century. This chapter addresses anthropogenic climate change due to increased GHG emissions caused by burning fossil fuels—among the drawbacks of industrialization. How carbon dioxide, one of the GHGs, could influence the air temperature was already understood in the late nineteenth century. It was not until the late 1980s and the first assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, published in 1990, that concern about global warming spread to a larger group of people. The ocean is under pressure from many stressors, and to meet these threats, restoring healthy marine environments is needed. The image of a healthy ocean suggests a likeness between the ocean and humans, for whom health can be both physical and mental. The ocean challenges us to build such health and to feel the joy of the ocean, which can create something greater: harmony between humans and ocean. Keywords Ocean · Coastal seas · Climate change · Environmental change · Connecting science and the arts · Sustainability · Oceanography · Psychology · Philosophy Voice of the ocean: A good life is beautiful and compassion gives a great deal back. I challenge you to build physical and mental harmony between us. Climate variations have been of concern to many people for many generations (Lamb 1995). These variations have been regarded as unexpected, with rapid shifts and fluctuations causing difficult living conditions through, for example, severe winters, crop failures, unseasonal killing frosts, ice, icing on ships, floods, drought, and storm damage on land and sea. In the nineteenth century, it was realized that carbon dioxide absorbed thermal radiation (Eunice Foote in 1856 and three years later John Tyndall see Jackson 2019; Arrhenius 1896). Variation in the atmospheric carbon dioxide level was also discussed as a possible explanation for major climate changes, such as ice ages. The topic was then forgotten, and it was mainly believed that human influence was insignificant compared with natural forces, such as solar activity and ocean circulation (Maslin 2004). Direct measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide were started by Keeling in the late 1950s, and soon these measurements constituted major evidence of human influence, and that land and ocean were © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 A. Omstedt, A Philosophical View of the Ocean and Humanity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36680-3_14

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unable to take up all the increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide. It was not until the 1980s that new estimates of global mean temperatures indicated that global warming was occurring. Through large international assessment efforts, various scientific views coalesced to form a consensus about global warming, leading to reports such as that of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change with its first assessment report in 1990, updated regularly since then, or, on a regional scale, of the BACC II Author Team (2015). Direct observations also indicated decreasing ocean pH (IPCC 2013), a new and unexpected threat, as the ocean has a high buffering capacity and was earlier believed to be insensitive to acidification. The scientific literature and data are full of crucial knowledge but also misleading errors that are communicated to society. Freely available observations, data products, and models as well as regular assessments are, therefore, fundamental to science today. It must be realized that science is not just a quest to discern the truth; science is also a social process in which researchers are strongly influenced by currently discussed ideas and available research programmes (von Storch 2012). The marine environment has generally been regarded as a free resource. Increasing exploration shows that it is under multiple stresses from many drivers, and that anthropogenic climate change due to increased GHG emissions is one factor that interacts with others. There is growing concern that marine system resilience will decrease in the future if management plans do not succeed in restoring a healthy marine environment. The ocean and human health are inextricably linked and humans have a profound effect on the health of the ocean (Fleming et al. 2015). But what does ‘healthy ocean’ mean? ‘Healthy’ is used metaphorically in this context, and metaphors are the language of dreams. Here, healthy suggests a similarity between the ocean and humans, for whom health can be physical or mental—or even economic. Today, no global observation system is available for assessing the health of the ocean, and there are major ongoing discussions on how to measure such health. Duarte and Gunn (2018) discussed this in relation to human health, suggesting a method in which one considers drivers, syndromes, indicators, and variables, all within the framework of regular global assessments (Photograph 14.1). Dear Ocean, as you have indicated, humans could better connect to you by considering what is going on in their own bodies and souls. But as it is difficult to measure your physical and mental health, I ask what the most important factor is when monitoring your health. For humans, I guess the important factors are weight, body temperature, blood pressure, and emotions, but what would be the best indicators for gauging your health? Well, I know that I am too keen to get answers from you and need to be more patient. I have been waiting more than a week now, and I am worried that I have made too many demands for our communication. These questions are seething within me, and I am hoping for contact with my subconscious resources, through which you send me messages.

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Photograph 14.1 Endeavour for harmony?

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This morning I received a new internal image, of a seabird flying just above the sea surface, evoking fascination, happiness, and excitement in me. The seabird is flying so beautifully near the surface, sensing and riding all the strange winds eddying above the waves. It flies with great precision and in complete harmony with the ocean surface. A seabird flying over the water was regarded by sailors as the navigator’s best friend, as these birds were mostly seen near coasts and islands and signalled that landfall was imminent. The bird in the image looks like an albatross, a species regarded as harbouring the souls of lost sailors, so that killing them was believed to bring bad luck. Here you have sent an image of an albatross in full harmony with the ocean—this is quite different from the image of the seabird that died because of plastic waste. Snieder and Schneider (2016) have suggested that we should understand such harmony as we understand harmony in music, in which collaboration between different voices can create something greater. Maybe you mean that harmony between humans and the ocean should be the best indicator of ocean health? The opposite—destructive human environmental behaviour—brings about human isolation and death, which were well described in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.4

References Arrhenius S (1896) On the influence of carbonic acid in the air upon the temperature of the ground. Philos Mag J Sci, Series 5, 41:237–276 BACC II Author Team (2015) Springer regional climate studies. Second assessment of climate change for the Baltic Sea Basin. Springer International Publishing, Cham, Switzerland Duarte CM, Gunn J (2018) Perspectives on a global observing system to assess ocean health. Front Mar Sci 5(3), Article 265 Fleming L, Depledge M, McDonough N, White M, Pahl S, Austen M, … Stegeman J (2015) The oceans and human health. In: Oxford research encyclopedia of environmental science. https://oxfordre.com/environmentalscience/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199389414. 001.0001/acrefore-9780199389414-e-12 IPCC (2013) Climate change 2013: the physical science basis. In: Stocker TF, Qin D, Plattner G-K, Tignor M, Allen SK, Boschung J, Nauels A, Xia Y, Bex V, Midgley PM (eds) Contribution of working group I to the fifth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK and New York, NY Jackson R (2019) Eunice Foote, John Tyndall and a question of priority. Notes and records. R Soc J Hist Sci. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2018.0066 Lamb HH (1995) Climate, history and the modern world, 2nd edn. Routledge, New York, NY Maslin M (2004) Global warming: a very short introduction. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK Snieder R, Schneider J (2016) The joy of science: seven principles for scientists seeking happiness, harmony, and success. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK von Storch H (2012) Sustainable climate science. In: Reckermann M, Brander K, MacKenzie B, Omstedt A (eds) Climate impact on the Baltic Sea: from science to policy. Springer, Berlin, Germany, pp 201–209

Chapter 15

Scenarios, the Future, and Simplicity

Abstract Many are trying to foresee what will happen in the future. Numerical calculations of changes in society often rely on statistical methods with no capacity to predict the future. Many try to relate various parameters to one another, hoping to gain knowledge of what is to come. Weather forecasting can provide information about conditions some days in advance. It is clear that emissions of carbon dioxide and other anthropogenic GHGs need to be reduced to prevent global warming. However, the global earth system models applied in climate change assessments rely on prescribed emission storylines and their projections are conditional on the assumed forcing. A major question for society is how to develop a greener and more sustainable future. The ocean responds by sending an image of barnacles adhering to a cliff, indicating that humans need to slow down, learn more from the ocean, and build durable and trusting relationships. Keywords Ocean · Coastal seas · Climate change · Environmental change · Connecting science and the arts · Sustainability · Oceanography · Psychology · Philosophy Voice of the ocean: When you feel as if something is chasing you, remember that the best thing is to slow down, turn around, and reflect on what is happening. Time is not running out; rather, time is bringing new challenges and new opportunities for reflection. More than one discrete factor is influencing the ocean. Various anthropogenic pressures play parts, pressures such as climate change, marine acidification, excess nutrient loading, pollution, plastic waste, ammunition dumping, overfishing, and various engineering-based modifications, including the rapid proliferation of coastal settlements, hydro- and nuclear power plants, wind farms, and bridge and tunnel crossings. When changes in the ocean are investigated, one should expect to find that the marine system is generally influenced by many stressors. The time scale considered is also important, for example, if one would like to say something about the next hundred years, it is a good idea to adopt a historical perspective. A time scale of a thousand years back in time immediately illustrates the uncertainty of climate variations on the centennial time scale. However, the changes seen today are unprecedented and outside the range of changes experienced over the last millennium. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 A. Omstedt, A Philosophical View of the Ocean and Humanity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36680-3_15

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Simply knowing the past is not good enough when trying to ascertain what may happen in years to come. The current situation and past trends do not necessarily say anything about the future. Of course, historical knowledge and data from earlier times are important for understanding current developments in nature and society, but trends can only be taken at face value when applied to the period from which they were derived. Outside the observation period, a trend cannot be used to make naive predictions; rather, a deeper understanding of how nature and society interact is needed. For example, if one studies a temperature record from January to August, the observed trend will give a completely wrong prediction of the upcoming winter temperatures. During the winter, temperatures go down in the northern hemisphere, which is well known and can be called a system understanding. Statistical methods and probability analyses are used in many different applications in society, and there is a general notion that many predictions can be made more accurate if one calculates the means. This is sometimes called the ‘wisdom of the crowd’, but there are always surprises, for example, most people who invest money in stocks cannot foresee market crashes. Without a deep system understanding, predictions about the future can be greatly misleading. Another way to say something about the future is to use statistical correlations. It is often possible to find statistical relationships between something one is interested in, which is called the predicand, and other variables about which one may have data, called predictors. It is easy to correlate several datasets with one another and obtain flawed and spurious results. Also, correlations about natural phenomena may change in space and time. In northern Europe, for example, the winter temperatures are closely related to the large-scale atmospheric circulation classified using the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) winter indices. However, this correlation changes with time (Omstedt and Chen 2001) and therefore cannot be used for predictions. Most predictions regarding future developments based on statistical methods are similarly uncertain. Many geophysical flows in the atmosphere and the ocean are stochastic. The situation is different with astronomical predictions, which can give reliable information many years ahead, for example, about how the moon’s orbit around the earth will change. Changes in stochastic flows cannot be predicted more than a short time in advance—for example, after about one week, weather forecasts convey no information. As the climate is based on weather statistics, one cannot expect climate models to have much predictive power even though they can calculate the statistical properties of weather, for example, in different regional climates around the earth. Also, a major problem with GHG model experiments is that we do not know the details of the assumed forcing on which the projections are conditional. Climate models are, therefore, not used to predict the future but rather to investigate the climate’s sensitivity to certain prescribed emission storylines. Efforts to estimate future changes due to anthropogenic climate change have been greatly developed within the IPCC process, and today many general circulation model simulations are available for various emission scenarios. Each of these earth system models (ESMs) involves many sub-models of processes such as radiation, cloud formation, snow cover, ice cover, glaciers, different land surface and vegetation

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schemes, turbulence, and ocean dynamics. Some of these sub-models are well tested and validated from observed forcing; however, in ESM systems, the use of multiple sub-models may generate errors due to differences in forcing between sub-models. In addition, these sub-models may generate considerable internal variability, making them sensitive to initial conditions. The same ESM will, therefore, yield different projections given different initial conditions. Therefore, instead of using just one future realization, multiple model realizations are used to create ensemble mean projections, which are regarded as more reliable than individual projections. For example, one can study the Arctic Ocean sea ice extent and consider when the Arctic might become ice free. This exercise was discussed by the IPCC (2013, Chap. 12), which found great uncertainty between the models even given the same emission pathways. Reducing this uncertainty is a major research challenge; meanwhile, ensemble means and expert judgments are often used to say something about the future (e.g., Meier et al. 2018). Even though there is a range of knowledge gaps, it is clear that emissions of carbon dioxide and other anthropogenic GHGs need to be reduced to slow global warming (Photograph 15.1). The various ESM storylines or scenarios are consistent with a wide range of possible changes in future emissions, ranging from reductions to considerable increases (O’Neill et al. 2017). These scenarios have strong implications for social development, but no indications are given as to which scenario is the most realistic. Also, there is no easy way to predict the future in complex systems such as society or earth. How we will handle and shape the development of society is dependent on what we do, and the models can only indicate the consequences of different prescribed emissions. Will society strive for a greener and more sustainable development path with reduced carbon dioxide emissions leading to a healthier environment? Or will future development lead to a fragmented world of regional rivalry and continued high consumption of energy and natural resources? In this I need some inspiration, and ask if you, Ocean, could give me some guidance. Thanks for this interesting image—it looks like barnacles adhering to a cliff. This reminds me of when I was young and swimming off the Swedish west coast. If I was not careful, I could easily hurt my feet on barnacles and start bleeding, as barnacles have razor-sharp plates that can cause severe injuries. In different phases of their life cycle, these small sea creatures metamorphose from being free-swimming larvae to attaching to all sorts of things, such as rocks, mussels, whales, or boats and buoys. So what are you trying to tell me? The image evokes feelings of simplicity, prudence, and caution in me. Barnacles have been living in the ocean for many millions of years and have adjusted to rapid sea-level variation and rough ocean conditions. They are considered a problem for humans, as they adhere to boats and foul anything put into the ocean, but this is not what you are trying to say to me. Instead, I need to think about what they can symbolize or how I can interpret them metaphorically. They are a problem for all sailors, as they stick to the bottoms of boats and reduce their

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Photograph 15.1 Simplicity supports beauty?

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speed by increasing friction. Starting life as free-swimming larvae, when they become mature they settle down and start building their protective limestone houses where they filter their food from the seawater. Maybe you mean that humans should slow down and build durable and trusting relationships? Yes, humans have much to learn from you the ocean.

References IPCC (2013) Climate change 2013: the physical science basis. In: Stocker TF, Qin D, Plattner G-K, Tignor M, Allen SK, Boschung J, Nauels A, Xia Y, Bex V, Midgley PM (eds) Contribution of working group i to the fifth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK and New York, NY Meier HEM, Edman MK, Eilola K, Placke M, Neumann T, Andersson HC, Savchuk OP (2018) Assessment of eutrophication abatement scenarios for the Baltic Sea by multi-model ensemble simulations. Front Mar Sci 5(28):440 Omstedt A, Chen D (2001) Influence of atmospheric circulation on the maximum ice extent in the Baltic Sea. J Geophys Res 106(C3):4493–4500 O’Neill BC, Kriegler E, Ebi KL, Kemp-Benedict E, Riahie K, Rothman DS, Solecki W (2017) The roads ahead: narratives for shared socioeconomic pathways describing world futures in the 21st century. Glob Environ Change 42:169–180

Chapter 16

Reconnecting to the Ocean

Abstract In this chapter, we deepen our understanding of our connection to the ocean and learn more about the attitude changes needed. The plastic waste that represents such a failure in our relationship with the ocean illustrates a clear problem with the mental health of humans. Although humans are greatly dependent on the ocean, we treat it unsustainably. Factual information is not the only thing affecting attitude change; emotions are equally important, so connecting science and the arts can improve our mental functioning and health and, in turn, our treatment of the ocean. Antidotes to narrow-minded thinking, fragmentation, alienation, despair, and fear entail integrating curiosity, courage, listening, hope, and simplicity in daily life. The beauty and vulnerability of the ocean and humans are factors that can inspire improved mental health and sustainable relationships. Keywords Ocean · Coastal seas · Climate change · Environmental change · Connecting science and the arts · Sustainability · Oceanography · Psychology · Philosophy

Now I need to listen to you, Ocean, more attentively and ask more questions, but I do not know whether you are interested in exploring further questions. Thanks for your willingness—I will try to ask more open-ended questions. Let’s go back to our earlier conversations and, chapter by chapter, deepen our thoughts and interpretations. The first dream image I received from you was of a seabird dying due to plastic ingestion. It is tragic to see how humans treat you by dumping so much plastic into you. Could you say anything more about this destructive behaviour and how to change it? Thanks, Ocean, I’m happy that you are still interested in communicating. The new image you sent me through my inner image maker is one that many have already seen and tried to forget, of a turtle with lots of plastic around it. I now understand that it is a problem of human mental health that has resulted in such a failure in our treatment of the ocean.

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Lots of knowledge is available and there are many ways to improve our understanding of the ocean and humanity. It is clear that people are connected to and rely on the ocean, but how can our various sources of knowledge help us take care of what we love? Can you say anything more about the strong human longing to connect to the ocean that Emily Dickinson described so well? Now, you have responded immediately. I am slightly confused, but I am trying to keep things clear. Maybe you are joking with me now, as you have sent an image of lots of baby turtles scrambling from a sandy beach into the water. Their struggle out of the nest to reach the water suggests a strong emotional drive. Numerous predators are hunting them, and every obstacle blocking their way into the water costs them valuable energy. Many die before reaching the water. Are you jokingly alluding to the Emily Dickinson poem, or trying to tell me that children know how to connect with you? Yes, you are reminding me that the ocean is a beautiful, unknown realm that children can explore in the spirit of adventure. Perhaps it was when I was learning how to swim off the Swedish west coast and found lots of interesting creatures below the surface that I decided to become an oceanographer. I also remember a book I read when I was young, saying something like look down into the ocean, where more is unknown than on the moon. There is such happiness in learning to apply a curiosity- and joy-driven approach to learning and life. Universities are unique platforms for such an approach, where interesting discussions are constantly taking place about current and future knowledge, which is rapidly transferred to new students. Maintaining joy in life starts by recalling what it was like as a child, for example, to explore the taste and smell of ocean water, in the tidal pools and near-shore waters. The sea ice reminded me of my own curiosity. I will try to understand once more what you are trying to tell me. Curiosity is what drives children to explore their world. They play, taste, smell, touch, and listen, thereby learning a tremendous amount about themselves and their environment. Could you say something more about ice? Now you are reminding me that ice is not a static material but that it is subject to change. The Arctic Ocean summer ice cover has drastically declined for several worrying reasons. Will this reduced ice cover negatively influence Arctic marine life? I have forgotten my understanding of metaphors. The image of ice should not be interpreted as just representing ice, but as a metaphoric image that tells me something about the connection between the ocean and humanity, about our emotions in this relationship. The ice image reminds me that frozen emotions can thaw out. Maybe you, Ocean, are trying to remind me that humans really are struggling to reconnect with and improve their behaviour towards the ocean? Kelp forest is so inspiring if you look on it as a metaphor. Life is not just struggle but also the freedom to grow and develop! I really liked the implication that I should be rooted in myself and my history while having the freedom to

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sway with the current. Why does my intuition about kelp give me such pleasure? Maybe you, Ocean, are emphasizing that the kelp forest provides important services to a wide range of marine life. Similarly, I am longing to serve and protect life—a great, beautiful, and noble vision. Could you say anything more about kelp? Now I am getting confused again and may have missed something. Do you mean that kelp could also play a part in humankind’s transition to a more environmentally friendly world? I know that kelp is used in many countries as part of the diet. Research at my institution is examining how seaweed could be used for many purposes, for example, in making bioplastics. The ocean and humans have the potential to develop a much healthier approach to coexistence and life. The surface eddies in the ocean can be visualized through satellite data showing the beauty and complexity of ocean dynamics. Not only eddies, but also the clear structure of the general circulation strongly influences the regional climate. Today plastic is distributed throughout the ocean, making me feel ashamed and almost lost. You sent me signals that humans can learn something about the disconnect between rational thinking and emotions. Humans treat the ocean they love as if they hate it—can you say anything more about such a strange contradiction? I now have an image of a small cave at the bottom of the ocean where lobsters can hide. This reminds me of my vulnerability and need for protection. Do you mean that humans are afraid? Many people are afraid of the ocean, and many stories tell of the dangers facing seafarers on their journeys. An alternative is to move to the cities and pretend that we can live without a close relationship with the ocean. But sometimes it is good to feel vulnerable and fearful when starting to build a relationship with something or someone one loves. It is a part of life that requires courage, and your image implies that there are places where we can shelter and overcome our fear of closer relationships—perhaps you mean at night when we are sleeping and dreaming? I am worried about what is happening to the ocean’s heat balance and water temperatures. Global warming could have so many effects on the ocean, some of them frightening. It seems as though humans like to tell apocalyptic stories as a strange way of coping with the future. Could you, Ocean, say something more about how humans can overcome their fear? Again, you have sent me the image of a jellyfish swimming slowly to the surface. Do you mean that I am not yet ready to grasp what you mean? The jellyfish looks quite relaxed, almost as if sleeping—in fact, several studies have found that jellyfish indeed have a sleep-like phase (Nath et al. 2017). It is interesting that you should remind me about sleeping. It is well known in psychology that dreams can heal difficult feelings, and dream-inspired changes in attitude are well known in the literature. For example, in Dickens’ famous 1843 novel A Christmas Carol, Scrooge, an unhappy and miserly elder, is visited at night by three ghosts that

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also could be interpreted as dreams. His experience that night transformed him into a kinder and happier person. New results in brain research indicate the importance of REM sleep for humans’ emotional contact with one another. The ability to read cues from one’s social surroundings does not function if this phase of sleep is impaired (Walker 2017). Are you saying that healthy sleeping and dreaming could be a way for humans to overcome their fear of the future and of each another? The ocean provides an immense service to the environment through the water balance. The management of freshwater is one of the major challenges facing humanity; it needs to be done sustainably, and researchers and engineers are developing improved methods to produce freshwater from the ocean. Now you, Ocean, are reminding me of the image that inspired me to think about our circulatory system. If we are healthy, our blood circulates in a healthy way and is oxygenated in the lungs and purified in the kidneys. The heart works like the ‘steam engine’ that drives the whole atmospheric circulation, and some say that the wetlands are the earth’s kidneys, as they absorb waste. So what you might be implying is that we need to think more carefully and create sustainable lifestyles? Some speak of a circular economy with minimal inputs and minimal waste, emissions, material, and energy leakage. I remember when I was in Canada during a sabbatical year in the 1990s, staff at my host institution argued that ecosystem health is everybody’s business. How can a sustainable relationship with the ocean be developed? You, Ocean, suggest that humans need to start by transferring ideas about improving human health to improving ocean health. An oxygen-rich environment is fundamental to most life. Oxygen enters our lungs where it oxygenates the blood, just as oxygen-rich surface water may ventilate deeper layers of the ocean. Both humans and marine ecosystems need an oxygen-rich environment, and the reason is simple to understand. Perhaps the octopus image illustrates how humans need to consider the ocean’s potential for harbouring intelligence? This is a provocative question, as humans often believe they are the smartest species on earth. Maybe we are not as intelligent as we think, as we can both love and destroy at the same time, having no control over our emotions. Do octopi have better control over their emotions, and can humans learn more from them? Phytoplanktons are the components of the plankton community that produce complex organic components from light and inorganic chemical reactions. They form the basis of the world’s largest food chain while producing oxygen for the water and air and absorbing carbon dioxide. They are also the source of mineral oil, humans’ most important energy source. Such a great service to humanity! Poetry, literature, music, and dreams connect humans by means of emotions, with metaphors being central to their interpretation. Just

References

as planktons are an important basis of marine life, perhaps the same is true of poetry, literature, and music. Music and heroic poetry, such as The Kalevala, play a fundamental role in human minds. To cure the dysfunctional state of the modern mind, new heroic poems need to be written that connect humans globally—is that your message, Ocean? It is clear that overfishing is dangerous. The ocean has always been an important and reliable source of food for humans. When certain species, such as cod and herring, are overfished, their marine ecosystems change in many ways, most of them unknown. Simply reducing the fish catch, enlarging protected marine reserve areas, and monitoring fish stocks are not enough. Instead, profound caution and a deeper understanding of the effects of harvesting marine resources are needed, as is an improved ability to listen to you, Ocean, and to one another (Photograph 16.1). The non-living resources in the ocean are vast in number and risky to explore. There is also gold in the ocean, and looking inside ourselves we may find important things that can be regarded as internal gold. You, Ocean, remind us that we need to give that away and work together or we will become greedy monsters. Working together and supporting one another is our best hope for a shared future. It was wonderful to receive the new image of the boat from you, as it gave me hope that, in the future, humans and the ocean will have a better, more harmonious relationship. Overfishing is a major challenge, and the 14th of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, calling for the conservation and sustainable use of the ocean, is a beautiful expression of the human desire to reconnect with you. Can you say anything more about what is lacking? I understand that today we need trust and to be proud of our best achievements. I did not fully understand your answer to my question about what information we need to measure when evaluating whether or not you are in a healthy state. Duarte and Gunn (2018) have suggested that variables such as nutrient concentrations, fish biomass, habitat extent, water transparency, pH, as well as chlorophyll and oxygen concentrations should all be considered when measuring ocean health. However, more information is probably needed in order to describe ocean health. The scientific idea is that an ocean health index (Halpern et al. 2012) should be able to integrate social, environmental, and economic aspects and serve as a tool for promoting the sustainable development of the ocean. But now I realize that you must mean that a healthy ocean is only possible when humanity and the ocean are in harmony, and that depends on how we interact. Thank you for inspiring me that humans and the ocean can indeed become strongly interconnected, as symbolized by barnacles adhering tightly to a cliff.

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Photograph 16.1 How can we reconnect?

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References Duarte CM, Gunn J (2018) Perspectives on a global observing system to assess ocean health. Front Mar Sci, 5(3):265 Halpern BS, Longo C, Hardy D, McLeod KL, Samhouri JF, Katona SK, Zeller D (2012) An index to assess the health and benefits of the global ocean. Nature 488:615–620 Nath RD, Bedbrook CN, Abrams MJ, Basinger T, Bois JS, Prober DA, Goentoro L (2017) The jellyfish Cassiopea exhibits a sleep-like state. Curr Biol 27(19):2984–2990 Walker M (2017) Why we sleep: unlocking the power of sleep and dreams. Simon & Schuster, New York, NY

Chapter 17

Orchestration

Abstract This final chapter presents a summary that emphasizes transdisciplinarity: going beyond and across individual disciplines to create new stories that bring the ocean and humanity into a healthy relationship—like an orchestra that combines the voices of individual instruments to yield a more complex and encompassing beauty. Keywords Ocean · Coastal seas · Climate change · Environmental change · Connecting science and the arts · Sustainability · Oceanography · Psychology · Philosophy Humans are connected to one another through their emotional life, which is often expressed in the arts. The arts involve many aspects of creativity and entail thinking in a way different from analytical thinking and using a different logic. Another aspect of the arts is that, while they touch on individual experience, they derive much of their power from what humans have in common with one another. The arts are free from scientific restrictions and can give free voice to our emotional life. The different perspectives of science and the arts need to be interconnected and integrated if we are to improve our awareness of the state of the ocean and support behavioural change. Scientists are trained in critical, analytical thinking and strive to deepen their understanding by exploring their fields in ever greater detail, at the same time as society has become increasingly specialized. The scientific method is strong, and it has made great progress in recent centuries. However, the management of the ocean and its coastal seas is failing, and these areas face increasing threats from intense anthropogenic pressures. Society expects more from the scientific community, and transdisciplinary programmes have accordingly been initiated to address global grand challenges. Large efforts have been made to formulate and take steps towards a sustainable global pathway. The United Nations has played an important role in this by formulating a strong vision of sustainability in its 17 Sustainable Development Goals. These Goals call for considerable effort to rethink environmental management, political ambitions, and human values. In recent decades, science has identified a number of threats to the ocean environment. Overfishing is well known; others include eutrophication, climate change, plastic waste, toxic pollution from various sources, oil and gas exploration, and illconsidered coastal construction. To overcome frustration and anger, scientists need © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 A. Omstedt, A Philosophical View of the Ocean and Humanity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36680-3_17

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support from the arts to help them discern new ways of thinking. When science and the arts are connected, much more joyful and creative thinking is possible. The ocean’s services to humankind are enormous and fundamental, and the value of these services to humans is inestimable. It is easy to understand that putting a monetary price on the ocean and its services is misleading. A change in human attitudes towards the ocean and the natural environment must be based on something other than simplistic and reductive economic costing. The needed attitude change must be based on a fundamental shift in our understanding of human values and how we interact. With a growing global population and increasing urbanization, there will be increased competition for resources and space. This may lead to alienation and increased marine destruction. In climate change scenarios, one speaks of a future of increased fragmentation. A green global world that is able to address rather than surrender to future challenges will require new and different values. If you ask the ocean about this, the ocean will give you the answer articulated in the poem quoted at the beginning of this book. Some of the ocean’s answers convey great trust in humanity, even though most of us today have lost our ability to meaningfully connect and communicate by avoiding human values. We are reminded that nurturing a new life under healthy living conditions is the most meaningful part of life. Developing healthy and joyful living conditions is possible, and with the growing human population, should be humankind’s primary task. Destructive thinking and behaviour scares us and will not promote the future development of a more sustainable lifestyle. Human development and culture accrued from the arts, language, and science have extraordinary capacities and can provide the impetus for needed mental change, as illustrated by humanity’s long history of bold achievements. Nothing, except human nature, has been too difficult to overcome, but the price paid has often been excessive. Every new generation builds on a long tradition of earlier achievements, and every new generation must learn that when people are free of fear others become braver, that when they are open minded others can speak, and that when they are generous others become freer. There is such happiness in learning via a curiosity and joy-driven approach. Humans need a vision that can free their imagination and resources while keeping their feet planted firmly on the ground. The most important vision might be that of helping one another and not destroying the ocean, swaying freely as a kelp forest does while sharing a vision and serving society in the interest of future generations. To come closer to the ocean, humans must free themselves of apocalyptic images. Doing so requires courage. These destructive images tell us a great deal about our own way of thinking. In view of all that humans receive from the ocean, it is obvious that humans get more than they give, and that reconnection and partnership will require more generosity. The best way to overcome traumatic emotions might well be to sleep and appreciate dreams. So many people need to start sleeping more consciously and realize that inside all humans there is an incorruptible core of being, a part that needs to be shared to improve our mental health. Our accumulated knowledge has such potential, inventing increasingly environmentally friendly processes in the areas of energy supply, freshwater production through desalination, food production from a healthy ocean, green cargo transport, green urbanism, ecological farming, and mental

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and physical human health. Improving our thinking by better connecting analytical thinking and intuition will bolster our courage to address global challenges. We need to derive joy from learning more about our beautiful blue planet and ourselves (World Ocean Review 2015). So much of humanity’s and the ocean’s true meanings and potentials are still unrealized. Ocean and human health will depend on harmony achieved through collaboration between many people to create something greater, like an orchestra giving as a collective more than the individual instruments can, as in the famous tone poem La Mer by Claude Debussy from the early twentieth century. Transdisciplinarity beyond and across individual disciplines will create a new story that brings the ocean and humanity into a healthy relationship. The ocean and humans utter many tones but melody is often missing. Beauty and vulnerability are fundamental to both the ocean and humans, but humans seem resistant to the inspiration they need. Social and emotional fragmentation and business-as-usual will destroy the planet. Rethinking and listening are needed. Stand up for curiosity and stand up for health. Be proud of the UN 2030 Agenda and go for it! Harmony is the utmost gift that will create an inspiring symphony that serves us, and the ocean.

Reference World Ocean Review (2015) Living with the ocean 4. Sustainable use of our oceans: making ideas work. Maribus gGmbH in cooperation with Future Earth, Kiel Marine Sciences, Hamburg, Germany. https://worldoceanreview.com/en/

Notes

(1) Freely translated into English from the lyrics of Sven Bertil Taube’s song, ‘Frågar du havet’, arranged by Olle Adolphson and Peter Nordahl, from the album Hommage (2014). (2) Ibsen, H. (1882). An enemy of the people. This play is available in various editions at most libraries. (3) Carson, R. (1962/2000). Silent spring. Afterword by Linda Lear. London, UK: Penguin Books. (4) The Rime of the Ancient Mariner was written by the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1797–1798 and was published in 1798 in the first edition of Lyrical Ballads, which also included poems by William Wordsworth. It is widely available on the Internet or in anthologies of English poems. (5) Dickinson, E. (1951). The complete poems of Emily Dickinson (T. H. Johnson, Ed.). Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press-Harvard University Press. (6) The Kalevala is an epic poem compiled from oral tradition by Elias Lönnrot and available in many editions. The present text refers to: Lönnrot, E. (1849/1989). The Kalevala (K. Bosley, Trans.). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. (7) During the 1949–1959 period, Vilhelm Moberg published The Emigrants series comprising four volumes: The Emigrants (1949), Unto a Good Land (1952), The Settlers (1956), and The Last Letter Home (1959). (8) The Lord of the Rings comprises three volumes: Tolkien, J. R. R. (1954). The fellowship of the ring. London, UK: George Allen & Unwin. Tolkien, J. R. R. (1954). The two towers. London, UK: George Allen & Unwin. Tolkien, J. R. R. (1955). The return of the king. London, UK: George Allen & Unwin.

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Appendix A

Some Mathematical Insights

A.1 Introduction Life is closely connected to fluids such as air in the atmosphere, water in lakes, rivers, and the ocean, and blood in our bodies. All living creatures are surrounded by fluids, as well as containing fluid within their bodies in the form of blood. Mathematical consideration can often give us insights into complex processes in nature and into population changes of various species, including humans. Mathematics itself has been described as an art similar to poetry, able to convey information in a highly concentrated form. The beautiful insights of mathematics are often based on great simplifications and therefore should be used carefully. As humans, our perceptions of life are greatly limited in time and space. An insight here can be illustrated by the powers of ten, i.e. 10p where p is the power. If one first considers time and lets the power represent the year, we as humans can often relate to changes that stay within p limits between –7 and 2 or between 10−7 and 102 , representing a time span from about 1 s–100 years. Chemical reactions can be fast, occurring in milliseconds, or about 10−10 (years), whereas the earth is 4.5 billion— about 109 —years old. This illustrates that the earth system acts over a much broader temporal scale than we humans often consider. If one conducts a similar thought experiment about the spatial dimension, most of us can relate to changes ranging from maybe millimetres to kilometres, or from values of p ranging from –3 to 3, the unit now being metres. Again looking at the earth system, with changes from the molecular level to the radius of the earth (about 6371 km), the potential ranges from –10 to 7 or from 10−10 to 107 m. If we consider spatial scales including the moon, sun, and galaxies, the size becomes much larger. The implication is that many aspects that are important for the earth system are often not considered by most people. This is also the case when modelling the earth system, as one cannot resolve all scales. The method used is to solve only the equations relating to limited temporal and spatial scales (e.g., Muller and von Storch 2004). The scales that are less than the resolved scales then need to be parameterized or treated in a much simpler way, while the scales that are larger than the resolved scales need to be prescribed, often greatly © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 A. Omstedt, A Philosophical View of the Ocean and Humanity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36680-3

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influencing the solution. Different observation perspectives or ‘glasses’ need to be applied, but entail the risk that important aspects might be neglected.

Conservation Equations Conservation equations form the basis of many applications and can be formulated for ocean properties (M) as d M = inputs − losses dt where M denotes properties such as water volume, temperature, salinity, and oxygen. For example, one can calculate the change in sea level by introducing density (defined as mass divided by volume) and writing: ρ0 A

d h = river inflow − net precipitation dt

where ρ is the density (kg/m3 ), A the area (m2 ), and h the sea-level height (m). Here groundwater is neglected and the water density is regarded as a constant. One immediately notices that the sea level will not change if the river runoff and net precipitation (i.e., precipitation–evaporation) balance each other. Studies of climate change need to add other processes to this equation, such as expansion due to warmer water and melting glaciers. For chemical components, one can write an equation in a similar way (Sarmiento and Gruber 2006): d d φ Mocean = Vocean Cocean = inputs − losses dt dt φ

where Mocean is the total number of moles of element φ and is equal to the product of its mean concentration (Cocean ) and the ocean volume (Vocean ).

Physical Properties A description of a fluid should relate the fluid’s density to its state variables, a relationship called the equation of state. For natural waters, this equation is generally a function of temperature, salinity, and pressure, but for shallow seas, one can often neglect pressure and use the following approximation:   ρ = ρ0 1 − α1 (T − Tρm )2 + α2 (S − Sref )

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Tρm = 3.98 − 022S where T and S are temperature and salinity, ρ0 the reference density, T ρ m the temperature of maximum density, S ref the reference salinity, and α1 and α2 the thermal and salinity expansion/contraction coefficients, respectively. Typical values for brackish water are ρ0 = 1000 (kg m−3 ), Sref = 0, α1 = 5 × 10−6 (°C−2 ), and α2 = 8 × 10−4 . The equation for the freezing temperature of ocean water reads T f = −0.0575S + 0.0017S 1.5 − 0.0002S 2 − 0.00753Pw where Pw is the water pressure measured in bars. Brackish water is often defined as saline water that has a freezing point below the temperature of maximum density. The upper salinity limit is 24.7 and the lower limit is estimated to be 0.5 (Leppäranta and Myrberg 2009). In the case of freezing water, ice needs to be considered. Ice forms a thin, rigid but fragile layer over the water body that dramatically changes the momentum, heat, mass, and gas exchanges between atmosphere and water. In nature, surface ice forms in two ways: Under calm conditions when the water surface is slightly supercooled and after atmospheric seeding, the ice crystals start growing horizontally into large crystals. When the horizontal space is occupied, the crystals then grow vertically (in seawater, ice crystals form from pure water, and the salinity leaks out along the crystal boundaries). These ice crystals grow, forming columnar ice that, together with snow, is often seen in sheltered lakes and shallow waters. Columnar ice (h ic ) grows proportionally to the square root of heat loss calculated from the temperature difference between the upper and lower ice surface layers and is strongly dependent on snow thickness. The rates of columnar ice growth can be calculated from ρi L

  dh ic ki ks = c T f − Tsur − Fw dt ki h s + ks h i

where ρ i is ice density, L i the latent heat of ice, T sur the upper ice surface temperature, F w the heat flow from the ocean, hs the snow thickness, and k i and k s the thermal conductivity of ice and snow, respectively. The second way ice forms in the ocean is under windy conditions accompanied by supercooling, when small ice crystals become mixed into the water column and form frazil ice. Under open water conditions, all the heat that escapes the cold water surface (F n ) is used for ice production, resulting in huge amounts of frazil ice. The f extent of frazil ice (h i ) grows linearly with heat loss: f

dh i Fn = dt L i ρi where F n is the net heat loss at the water surface.

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Frazil ice is later transformed into grease ice and pancake ice, which often constitutes the basis of sea ice. When a thin ice layer has formed, winds and currents cause it to drift. During free ice drift, the ice moves at approximately 2–3% of the wind velocity and 20°–30° to the right (in the northern hemisphere) of the wind direction, due to the Coriolis effect. Under the influence of onshore winds or when the ice concentration is high, the plastic behaviour of ice starts to influence the drift. This reduces the ice velocity and, at a certain ice pressure, the ice breaks and starts forming ridged ice. For polar and subpolar seas, it is important to model the extent of open and ice-covered areas. Change in the horizontal extent of ice is due partly to ice drift and waves and partly to thermodynamic processes. Change in the position of the ice edge, X f , can be expressed as a balance between ice drift and horizontal ice growth, as x f Fn dx f = Ui − dt h i ρi L i The ice drift equation then reads

Ui =

⎧ ⎨ Ufree − ⎩

Ufree ,

αi p Pi , Ui ≥ 0 icedrift towards shore Xd − X f Ui ≤ 0 icedrift towards offshore

i is assumed to be 2% of the wind speed, Pi is ice strength (Nm−2 ), α ip is a where Ufree constant, and X d − X f is the ice cover dimension (Omstedt 2015). The ice strength is dependent on the studied scale, and for the Arctic Ocean was first calculated according to Hibler (1979) as

Pi = P∗ h i e−ci (1−Ai ) where P∗ and ci are often treated as constants and Ai is the ice concentration. A more detailed discussion of sea ice drift is given by Leppäranta (2011).

References Hibler WD III (1979) A dynamic thermodynamic sea ice model. J Phys Oceanogr 9(4):815–846 Leppäranta M (2011) The drift of sea ice. Springer, Berlin, Germany Leppäranta M, Myrberg K (2009) Physical oceanography of the Baltic Sea. Springer, Berlin, Germany Muller P, von Storch H (2004) Computer modelling in atmospheric and oceanic sciences: building knowledge. Springer, Berlin, Germany Omstedt A (2015) Guide to process based modelling of lakes and coastal seas, 2nd ed. Springer, Berlin, Germany Sarmiento JL, Gruber N (2006) Ocean biogeochemical dynamics. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ

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A.2 Geophysical Fluid Dynamics The geophysical flow equations (Cushman-Roisin and Beckers 2011) start from Newton’s equation for two bodies and introduce different mathematical assumptions, for example, that the equations are also relevant to fluids of different densities. However, the density of ocean water is much greater than the density variations inside the fluid; this reduces the complexity and allows further simplification, called the Boussinesq approximation after the French mathematician and physicist Joseph Valentin Boussinesq. The fluid properties are assumed to be conserved, which means that any changes will be reflected in the change of the property studied. The fluid is also assumed to be a continuum much larger than the size of molecules. It is not just gravity that influences the motion, but also pressure, the earth’s rotation, and turbulence. The geophysical flow equations are a beautiful set of equations that give insights into the motions and changes in the ocean as well as the atmosphere. The equations are nonlinear and contain many different solutions, so simplifications are often needed. The total changes in the three velocity components are influenced by a number of processes such as earth rotation, pressure, gravity, turbulence, and tides. Solving the equations also requires boundary conditions, which include friction effects due to the wind, bottom topography, and coastal boundaries. The equations are thus both internally driven and externally forced, giving rise to large variations in ocean response patterns, including steady-state, periodic, and random motions (see, e.g., Weisse and von Storch 2010, on climate variability). Simplification by estimating the most important terms in complex equations can give insights. In geophysical flow dynamics, this is done by calculating dimensionless numbers that compare terms in the equation with the earth’s rotation. Mathematical insights, analytical thinking, intuition, and experience all come into play, and some examples are given here. The total change in velocity depends on change in both time and in space, which could be estimated by calculating the temporal Rossby number, Rot = Ω T1scale , and the Rossby number, Ro = ΩULscale , where Ω = time of one2πresolution is earth’s rotation scale frequency, equal to 7.3 × 10−5 (s−1 ), and L scale , T scale , and U scale represent the typical scales of length, time, and speed, respectively. In large-scale flows, these dimensionless numbers are often small, implying that the acceleration terms are small. For example, for a current speed of 10−1 ms−1 and with a dimension L scale , greater than 105 m, the Rossby number is much less than 1. Also, if T scale is greater than 105 s or about a day, the temporal Rossby number is much less than 1. Thus, for currents with speeds of around 10−1 ms−1 , longer than 100 km, and lasting more than a day, the acceleration terms in relation to the earth’s rotation can be ignored. To estimate whether the flow is laminar or turbulent, the Reynolds number, R E = UscaleνL scale , can be calculated. If the typical length scale is 105 m, the velocity scale is 10−1 ms−1 , and the molecular viscosity, υ, is equal to 10−6 m2 s−1 , the Reynolds number then becomes 1010 and molecular effects can be easily neglected. Corresponding estimates for the diffusion of heat or salinity can be estimated from

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the Péclet number, Pe = UscaleκL scale , where κ is now the heat or salt diffusion. Only at very short length scales do the molecular effects become important. For example, at the ice–water boundary, the typical layer thicknesses are 10−3 m, 10−4 m, and 10−5 m for the molecular, heat, and salt diffusion layers, respectively (Omstedt and Svensson 1992). To estimate when stratification needs to be taken into account, one can calculate , where N is the stratification frequency or the Brunt– the Froude number, Fr = NUHscale scale 2 Väisälä frequency (i.e., N = − ρg0 dρ ). The rule is that if Fr ≤ 1, then the stratification dz effects are important. The length scale at which stratification and rotation become equally important is called the internal Rossby radius of deformation, i.e., L Ro = N Hscale . f The importance of friction at the surface, bottom, and coastal boundaries can be estimated from the horizontal, Ekh = Ω LνT2 , and vertical, Ekv = Ω HνT2 , Ekman scale scale numbers, where H scale is the depth and νT is now the turbulent viscosity, which is an estimate of turbulence and has the dimension of turbulence velocity times the length of turbulent eddies (m2 s−1 ) and is much greater than the molecular viscosity. For Ω = 7.3 × 10−5 s−1 , H scale = 10 m, νT = 10−2 m2 s−1 , the vertical Ekman number is equal to about 1, and the friction effects are important. The depth at which friction is important, called the Ekman depth, can be estimated by assuming that the vertical Ekman layer is 1 and calculating HE = νΩT , with the resulting number in the order of 10 m, representing a rather thin layer relative to the depth of the ocean but much thicker than the molecular sub-layers . The water transport in the Ekman surface layer can be written as − → → τa × k −→ − ME = ρf − → → where − τa is the wind stress (a vector) and k represents the unit vector in the vertical direction and is positive upwards. The formula indicates that the transport goes to the right of the wind on the northern hemisphere and the left of the wind in the southern hemisphere. Outside these thin turbulent friction layers, frictional effects can often be neglected. However, these friction layers have tremendous importance for the ocean circulation, as they generate vertical motion if the wind or bottom frictions differ in the horizontal dimension. This forcing is called Ekman pumping and, for example, during weather cyclones, the winds in the northern hemisphere cause diverging motion in the surface water that is compensated for by vertical motion from the deeper part of the ocean. The Ekman pumping at the surface layer can be calculated from (Cushman-Roisin and Beckers 2011): 

∂ wE = ∂x



τx f



 ∂ τy − , ∂y f

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where the wind stress components in the x and y directions are denoted by τ x and τ y , respectively, and f is the Coriolis parameter, representing the earth’s rotation at a specific latitude. The earth’s rotation changes with latitude (φ) and can be written as f = 2Ω sin φ. A mathematical simplification is to assume that f = f 0 + β0 y, where f 0 and β0 are constants. Armed with all our simplifications (i.e., Rot , Ro, Ek h , and Ek v are all much less than 1), an important relation is β0 V ≈ f

wd − w H H

This simple equation is known as the Sverdrup relation after the Norwegian oceanographer Harald Sverdrup. The north or south current transport (V ) is thus dependent on how the vertical velocities change with depth, where wd and wH are the vertical velocities below the surface Ekman layer (d) and at the bottom (H). Neglecting the vertical velocity at the bottom and recalling the Ekman pumping, the Sverdrup relation connects the wind-driven currents with the meridional largescale circulation. In the northern hemisphere, the west wind belt generates Ekman transports to the south and the Trade winds generate Ekman transports to the north. Together they generate a negative vertical motion that forces the meridional current transport south towards the equator. Similarly, the meridional transports in the southern hemisphere go north and towards the equator. However, circulation towards the equator must turn back somewhere, which requires more mathematical insights. The solution was delivered by Stommel (1948), who demonstrated the asymmetry of the wind-driven ocean circulation at midlatitudes, which intensified greatly at the western boundary. These strong currents are called western boundary currents, exemplified by the Gulf Stream and the Kuroshio Current. Based on Sverdrup’s and Stommel’s ideas, Munk (1950) formulated a beautiful mathematical description of the large-scale wind-driven ocean circulation in a rectangular basin, including both the southern and the northern hemispheres. If time variations and friction effects are small, several important analytical aspects of the fluid flow can be derived. For example, the flow is geostrophically balanced, meaning that the Coriolis terms balance the pressure terms. The Taylor–Proudman theorem states that the horizontal velocity field has no vertical shear and that the flow cannot proceed across changes in bottom topography; instead, slow currents follow depth contours. If time variations are important and the currents are influenced by the earth’s rotation, a useful expression is that the change in relative vorticity needs to be conserved, as follows:

∂V ∂U d f + ∂x − ∂y =0 dt H For a change in the bottom topography, this equation indicates that the fluid flow will change its vorticity. The usefulness of this conservation law is illustrated below by the assumptions that we have a coastline along the y-axis, with no current variation

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along the coast. The equation reads d dt



f + ∂∂Vx H

d ≈ dt



f +

Vcoast −Vshore L coast

H

=0

The velocity at the shore can be neglected and one special case can be noted. For a coast with a sudden increase in depth (H), the potential vorticity needs to increase, which can be done by increasing the coastal current vorticity. For example, the Baltic Current leaves the Baltic Sea through a narrow and shallow sea (the Kattegat) to a much deeper sea (the Skagerrak) where bottom topography increases, forming the coastal current that continues along the Swedish and Norwegian west coast. The conservation of potential vorticity can also be used to illustrate, for example, the return flow at the western boundaries.

References Cushman-Roisin B, Beckers J-M (2011) International geophysics series: Vol. 101. Introduction to geophysical fluid dynamics: physical and numerical aspects, 2nd ed. Academic Press–Elsevier, Waltham, MA Munk WH (1950) On the wind-driven ocean circulation. J Meteorol 7(2):79–93 Omstedt A, Svensson U (1992) On the melt rate of drifting ice heated from below. Cold Reg Sci Technol 21(1):91–100 Stommel H (1948) The westward intensification of wind-driven ocean currents. Trans Am Geophys Union 29(2):202–206. Weisse R, von Storch H (2010) Marine climate and climate change: storms, wind waves and storm surges. Springer, Berlin, Germany

A.3 Ocean Biogeochemical Dynamics The age of the earth is estimated to be 4.5 billion years, and the earth’s water started out as a gas due to the earth’s warmth. About 3.8 billion years ago, the water vapor condensed and formed liquid water, filling the basins that later became the ocean we know today. The dissolved concentrations of chemical components in the ocean vary by almost 12 orders of magnitude (Sarmiento and Gruber 2006), and the question is why. Starting from the conservation of total moles of chemical elements, Sarmiento and Gruber (2016, p. 5) simplified the equation by assuming that the main chemical source terms come from rivers and the main loss comes from removal; the resulting equation reads Q river Criver 1 d Cocean = − Cocean dt Vocean τr

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where Q river is the river flow typical of the ocean today and equal to 3.7 × 1013 (m3 year−1 ), V ocean is the ocean water volume today and equal to about 1.29 × 1018 (m3 ), and τr is the removal or accumulation time scale for the studied chemical element. If the river inflow balances the removal of the studied chemical element, the equation reads Cocean = τriver Criver

Q river 3.7 × 1013 = τriver Criver ≈ τriver Criver 29 × 10−6 Vocean 1.29 × 1018

or τr =

Cocean Vocean Cocean ≈ 34, 500 year Criver Q river Criver

The ocean concentration of the element is then linearly dependent on the input from the rivers and the removal time scale, both factors that vary over a wide range and can explain the great variation in observed ocean concentrations (see Sarmiento and Gruber 2006, Table 1.1.1). The distribution of the chemicals in the ocean depends on the residence time or mixing time scale. By using tracers such as radiocarbon, the exchange rate between surface and deep water is estimated to be 1.2 × 1015 m3 s−1 . The residence time, which is defined as the water volume divided by the exchange rate, is then estimated to be 1050 years (Sarmiento and Gruber 2006, p. 13). For chemical elements that have a removal time scale much greater than the mixing time scale, the chemical elements are well distributed through the ocean. If the removal time scale is instead less than the mixing time scale, the studied chemical component displays regional differences. Through stoichiometric relationships and chemical reaction formulas, conservation equations can be derived for different chemical elements. The ocean water carbonate chemistry considers the concentration of dissolved inorganic carbon, which consists of the following components, i.e., carbon dioxide (CO2 ), carbonic acid (H2 CO3aq ), bicarbonate (HCO– 3aq ), and carbonate (CO2– 3aq ), the sum of which is referred to as the total dissolved inorganic carbon (CT ). Total alkalinity (AT ) is defined as the excess of proton acceptors (i.e., anions of weak bases) over proton donors (i.e., strong acids). The major proton acceptors in seawater are hydrogen carbonate (HCO3 – ), carbonate (CO3 2– ), and borate (B(OH)–4 ) ions, whereas hydrogen ions (H+ ) and hydrogen sulphate ions (HSO4 – ) act as proton donors. AT is influenced by, for example, limestone dissolution through the increase in carbonate ions. This addition of carbonate ions strengthens the buffering capacity (AT ) and increases the pH. The addition of weak acids such as CO2 lowers the pH. The state variables for the carbonate chemistry are CT and AT , which are defined as follows:   2−   CT = [CO2 ] + HCO− 3 + CO3 ,   2−     −  +  + B(OH)− − H , AT = HCO− 3 + 2 CO3 4 + OH

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where the brackets indicate that the concentrations of the substances are given in mol kg−1 . If the total inorganic carbon and total alkalinity are known, we can derive a simplified relationship for the pH by ignoring the presence of boric acid. This simplified analytical relationship is as follows:  + K 2 (2CT − AT ) H ≈ AT − CT where K 2 is a solubility constant, which is temperature and dependent. An    salinity important aspect of this simplified equation is that the pH H+ = 10−pH of water is dependent on the difference between total alkalinity and total inorganic carbon in a nonlinear manner. In addition, small differences between these parameters can drastically change the pH. For seawater with a temperature of 10 °C and a salinity of 10, K 2 is 2.94 × 10−10 , total alkalinity is 1600 μmol kg−1 , total inorganic carbon is 1500 μmol kg−1 , and the pH is 8.4 (Omstedt 2015). The carbon cycle can be related to the organic material formed by primary production in a simplified way, as follows:   a[CO2 ]+b HNO3 +c[H3 PO4 ]+(a + b)[H2 O]   ⇔ (CH2 O)a (NH3 )b (H3 PO4 )c +(a+2b)[O2 ] where (a:b:c) = (106:16:1) are the standard Redfield values. The expression illustrates how carbon dioxide (CO2 ), water, and nutrients (N and P) may form plankton in the simplest form, (CH2 O)a , (NH3 )b , (H3 PO4 )c , and oxygen (O2 ). For each chemical element, the conservation equation then needs to be derived.

References Omstedt A (2015) Guide to process based modelling of lakes and coastal seas, 2nd ed. Springer, Berlin, Germany Sarmiento JL, Gruber N (2006) Ocean biogeochemical dynamics. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ

A.4 Population Dynamics Calculating the dynamics of a population (P) requires good knowledge of the size and age composition, birth and death rates, and immigration and emigration rates. Again we can rely on conservation criteria and write dP = birth − death + immigration − emigration. dt

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Several processes need to be considered, depending on the type of population studied. For example, organisms have different life cycles with different stages of reproduction. If one neglects immigration and emigration rates and thus considers the whole population rate, the equation for exponential growth and logistic growth reads dP k P2 = kP − dt K where the first term on the right side represents the exponential population growth, letting the population grow increasingly fast as it gets larger. The second term reduces the population growth until it reaches a maximum imposed by, for example, limiting resources in the environment, known as the carrying capacity. The first term on the left side has a J-shaped curve and the second an S-shaped curve. Assuming that the population change in time is zero, it is easy to derive that P = K, i.e., the population is equal to the carrying capacity of the studied system. Human population growth is strongly related to the global organization of society and use of natural resources, here estimated by carrying capacity. Before 1800, the global population was less than a billion. In 1960 the population was 3 billion, and today it is about 8 billion. From the form of the population growth curve, one can estimate that the carrying capacity before 1800 was about 1 billion, but that the later exponential growth was possible due to a sudden increase in carrying capacity. By the end of this century, a new balance is expected at about 11 billion people, so the carrying capacity will need to increase one order of magnitude by 2100 compared with before 1800. Rees (2018) stated that one cannot specify an ‘optimum population’ for the world, as it depends on people’s lifestyles, diet, travel patterns, and energy needs. He also argued that with a change in lifestyle (e.g., vegan diets and reduced travelling), 20 billion could live sustainably. The World Resources Institute (2018) outlined a number of solutions needed to feed 10 billion people by 2050 in a sustainable way, including stabilizing climate change, promoting economic growth, and reducing poverty. One such solution is for the 20% of the world’s population living in countries with high consumption of ruminant meat (i.e., meat from cattle, sheep, and goats) to reduce their average consumption of meat by 40% relative to 2010 levels. Wilson (2013) tried to stimulate young biological scientists to explore mathematical insights by illustrating the rapid turnover of genes between generations. Since each person has two parents and four grandparents, the number of relatives increases by n = 2x , where x is the number of generations; for example, 10 generations back in time, one has 1024 direct ancestors. Making the same calculation forward in time requires that we know how many children will survive. Assuming two surviving children and 10 generations forward would give 1024 new relatives. In a few generations, one’s genes will be dissolved in the gene pool of the population as a whole.

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References Rees M (2018) On the future: prospects for humanity. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ Wilson EO (2013) Letters to a young scientist. W.W. Norton & Company, London, UK World Resources Institute (2018) Creating a sustainable food future: a menu of solutions to feed nearly 10 billion people by 2050. Synthesis Report, December 2018. World Resources Institute, Washington, DC

A.5 Mathematics of Emotions and Artificial Intelligence Science aims to describe and explain phenomena and contexts in the physical world. Using observations and experiments, science seeks better explanations of how nature works. In recent decades, human influence on nature has increased and become a component that needs to be added to the natural components. The earth system’s main components are the following: • the geosphere, which is composed of rocks and minerals; • the atmosphere, which is composed of the gaseous layer surrounding the earth; • the hydrosphere, which is composed of water in its liquid form, i.e., all fresh and saline water bodies, as well as ice (often called the cryosphere); • the biosphere, which comprises all living organisms, including humans. These different components involve a large number of processes and mechanisms that are responsible for changes in the earth system. The mechanisms by which humans influence the earth system are closely related to human behaviour, which includes genetic aspects, culture, and individual values and attitudes, all of which are reflected in humans’ various lifestyles. Knowledge of these factors is traditionally outside the natural science arena but is available in social science and the arts. Social science and the arts concern themselves with knowledge of society, relationships among individuals, expressions of creativity, and emotions, which are studied in various academic disciplines. Strong disciplinary specialization may hide the available knowledge, resulting in failure to identify close links. However, the natural and social sciences as well as the arts have many similarities, as they all attempt to understand and describe the world around and inside us. Today, academia should better support transdisciplinary programmes in both education and research to be able to address the grand global challenges, as addressed in the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals. For example, we should improve our understanding of how emotions, attitudes, and behavioural change can be understood in relation to anthropogenic impact and complex decisions. With increased computer capacities, machine learning will become an important mathematical tool for developing algorithms and statistical relationships from sources of big data. Many applications are based on machine learning, for example, speech recognition, translation between languages, network management, facial recognition, and games (Rees 2018). The increasing interest in artificial intelligence

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(AI) will require more cross-cutting research. Interestingly, when developing selfdriving cars with artificial intelligence, the moral questions become obvious (Awad et al. 2018), illustrating the great need for a closer connection between technological development and ethics. How a self-governing machine should make decisions entails questions about what most people believe are the most appropriate decisions and what needs to be considered in making them. Opinion surveys may provide guidance in such matters but could also be dangerous, as the results may come into conflict with respect for all living beings on earth. Estimating economic values for humans and the ocean will conceal ethical dilemmas. On the other hand, prescribed moral rules may give rise to a future in which societies move towards authoritarianism. Häggström (2016) has discussed unfriendly AI development, warning of the risks of a catastrophic AI breakthrough. He also discussed how to weigh the present generation’s well-being against future generations’ well-being using cost–benefit analyses. In such cases, mathematical considerations may give guidance but still be highly problematic.

References Awad E, Dsouza S, Kim R, Schulz J, Henrich J, Shariff A, Rahwan I (2018) The moral machine experiment. Nature 563:59–64 Häggström O (2016) Here be dragons: science, technology and the future of humanity. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK Rees M (2018) On the future: prospects for humanity. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ

Appendix B

Some Useful Websites

B.1 Introduction Connecting science and the arts creates a need for a vast amount of knowledge, available from libraries, data centres, authorities, and research groups. Visiting a library, and looking into reference works and questioning librarians are good starting points. Today, effective Internet search engines such as Google broaden opportunities for transdisciplinary research. The ISI Web of Knowledge is a good starting point. This online database includes all peer-reviewed literature published since the 1940s– 1950s, and incorporates a convenient search engine with which one can search for any combination of keywords, authors, journals, years published, etc. An advantage of the Web of Knowledge is that it filters out all non-scientific texts; a significant disadvantage is that access to it is limited to accounts with a licence for the site. One can usually find the same publications (at least the abstracts) using popular search engines such as Google, but one must be vigilant in filtering out unreliable sources of information. Information is available from Our World in Data on how population and living conditions are changing, and graphic representations of many living aspects are given in an open-access form. Another important information source is the UN’s Internet platform for sustainable development, which includes descriptions of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Below, I list various useful Internet sites that I have been using, though of course there are many more to explore. Web of Science http://isiknowledge.com Our World in Data https://ourworldindata.org United Nations https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/key-issues/statistics.html http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/theme/urbanization/index. shtml © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 A. Omstedt, A Philosophical View of the Ocean and Humanity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36680-3

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https://en.unesco.org/ocean-decade UN 2030: United Nations’ 2030 Agenda Vision and Goals https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld Energy Data from International Energy Agency (IEA) https://www.iea.org/statistics International Seabed Authority (ISA) https://www.isa.org.jm United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) http://www.un.org/depts/los Population Statistics https://ourworldindata.org www.gapminder.org Geographical Information Earth’s Relief http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/global/global.html World’s Coasts http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/shorelines/ Bathymetric Data https://www.bodc.ac.uk/data/online_delivery/gebco/ World Maps http://maps.google.com/ Climate Data and Climate Change BALTEX Assessment of Climate Change http://www.baltex-research.eu/BACC/ Climate Explorer http://climexp.knmi.nl/start.cgi?someone@somewhere IPCC http://www.ipcc.ch/ NASA Earth Observatory http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/GlobalMaps/ http://data.giss.nasa.gov/ NASA/Goddard Institute for Space Studies http://data.giss.nasa.gov/ NCAR/UCAR Climate Data Guide https://climatedataguide.ucar.edu/ Ocean-Related Data Marine Explorer http://marineexplorer.org/ My Ocean http://www.myocean.eu/ World Ocean Database https://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/WOD/pr_wod.html NOAA Data Centre www.ncdc.noaa.gov

Appendix B: Some Useful Websites

Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level (PSMSL) http://www.psmsl.org/ The Joint Archive for Sea Level (JASL) http://ilikai.soest.hawaii.edu/uhslc/rqdssta.html University of Hawaii Sea Level Center Website http://uhslc.soest.hawaii.edu/data/rqh Joint Archive for Shipboard ADCP—Online Inventory http://ilikai.soest.hawaii.edu/sadcp/main_inv.html The Global Temperature and Salinity Profile Programme (GTSPP) http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/GTSPP/gtspp-home.html Global Argo Data Repository http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/argo/index.htm Southern Ocean Data http://www.soos.aq Satellite Data http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/SatelliteData/ Ocean Hydrographic Data and Water Masses https://cchdo.ucsd.edu/ Buoy Group’s Deep Water Archive (current Meter Data) http://kepler.oce.orst.edu/ WOCE Subsurface Float Data Assembly Center http://wfdac.whoi.edu/ USA Snow and Ice Data Center https://nsidc.org/ Coastal Sea Data SMHI Marine Data http://www.smhi.se/k-data/marine_environmental_data.html ICES Marine Data http://www.ices.dk/Pages/default.aspx Atmospheric Data NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis II http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/gridded/data.ncep.reanalysis2.html Precipitation http://trmm.gsfc.nasa.gov/data_dir/data.html Ocean Arts http://worldoceanobservatory.org/content/ocean-art https://fineartamerica.com/art/ocean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Wave_off_Kanagawa Adobe Stock free images or similar River Runoff Data Global River Runoff Data Centre http://www.bafg.de/GRDC/EN/Home/homepage_node.html http://www.sage.wisc.edu/riverdata/ http://csdms.colorado.edu/wiki/River_discharge_data Expert Information and Illustrations

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Inside Science TV https://www.insidescience.org/video/what-would-happen-if-there-were-no-moon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tjHa_I4Fak Ocean Waves in Slow Motion https://www.instagram.com/p/Bl4T1DBFX3T/?utm_source=ig_share_sheet& igshid=1eyuq61045ob8&r=so Ocean Circulation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCmTY0PKGDs Ice Flowers in the Arctic and Antarctic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gkLRf4t534 Ocean Plastics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nf8QHkSZr88 Ocean Vision by Sylvia Earle https://www.ted.com/talks/sylvia_earle_s_ted_prize_wish_to_protect_our_oceans? language=sv&utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source= tedcomshare#t-1071322 Octopi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G6eH1KDl0s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUKEAJjDqkE Grand Banks Dory https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zpMPmhPdWI

Glossary and Abbreviations

ACIA Arctic Climate Impact Assessment Acidification decrease of pH in water Accumulation time the time it takes to fill a reservoir Albedo the fraction of solar radiation reflected by a surface or object Anoxic free of oxygen Anthropogenic resulting from human activity BACC BALTEX Assessment of Climate Change Baltic Earth network for improved earth system understanding of the Baltic Sea region Biochemical processes chemical processes that occur in living organisms Biogeochemical processes chemical processes that occur in the living and nonliving compartments of the studied system Climate the statistical state of weather over long periods of time typically at least 30 years Climate variability changes in climate over space and time attributable to many factors Climate change change in the statistical distribution of climate over an extended period Chlorophyll green pigments responsible for allowing plankton to absorb energy from light Compassion ability to notice what others need; desire and actions to prevent or mitigate suffering Conscious mind the part of the mind that is aware of external or internal objects Courage ability to do something that frightens one Curiosity desire to know or learn something Cyanobacteria a special type of phytoplankton also called blue-green algae DDT Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethanea pesticide used in agriculture and households Desalination removal of salt from seawater to generate freshwater Diatoms one group of phytoplankton Downwelling sinking surface water in a water body © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 A. Omstedt, A Philosophical View of the Ocean and Humanity, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36680-3

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Glossary and Abbreviations

Dreams a series of thoughts images and emotions occurring during sleep Ecosystem a community of organisms interacting with the non-living parts of the environment Ekman transport wind-driven water transport 90° to the right (left) of the wind direction in the northern (southern) hemisphere Elastic deformation reversible change in the shape of a material (e.g., a rubber band) ESM earth system model Eukaryotes organisms whose cells have a nucleus enclosed within membranes Eutrophication addition of nutrients to a water body Evolution development over time and generations of different kinds of organisms Evaporation transition of liquid water to the gas phase FAO Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Freshwater content amount of freshwater available in ocean water Gravity force by which a planet or other body draws objects towards its centre Glaciation the formation movement and recession of glaciers Global mean temperature surface air temperature averaged over the globe during a given time period Greenhouse gases water vapour carbon dioxide methane nitrous oxide and ozone Frazil ice crystals of ice formed in turbulent supercooled water Fragile material easily broken or damaged material such as glass or sea ice Future Earth a programme and network to explore risks posed by global environmental change and opportunities for sustainability Geophysical fluid dynamics fluid dynamics of naturally occurring flows on the earth and other planets Harmony collaboration between different ‘voices’ to create something greater Heat capacity equal to the ratio of the heat added to the temperature change Heat conduction movement of heat between parts of a substance that have different temperatures Humanity sum of all humans ICES International Council for the Exploration of the Sea Integrity practice of being honest Interdisciplinary research combines research in two or more academic disciplines into a single activity creating new approaches by thinking across boundaries Intuition ability to understand something instinctively IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ISA International Seabed Authority Kelp forests underwater areas populated with large brown algae of the kelp species Latent heat energy required for phase change such as freezing melting evaporation or condensation Latent heat flux heat flux associated with freezing melting evaporation or condensation Listening attention to internal or external voices Long-wave radiation energy radiation emitted by all bodies such as the earth and clouds

Glossary and Abbreviations

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Metaphor a statement or image regarded as representative of something else NAO North Atlantic Oscillation Net precipitation difference between precipitation and evaporation NREM non-rapid eye movement sleep phase Pack ice ridged sea ice Pancake ice rounded pieces of ice formed from frazil ice and waves Parameterization defining or choosing parameters that describe unresolved processes Perception the ability to see hear or become aware of something through the senses pH a number expressing the proton concentration (H+ ) of a solution on a logarithmic scale Plastic deformation non-reversible change in the shape of a material (e.g., glass or sea ice) Prokaryotes unicellular organisms that lack membrane-bound organelles and a defined nuclei REM rapid eye movement sleep phase Regime shift an abrupt and persistent change Removal time time it takes to empty a reservoir Sensible heat flux heat flux associated with the temperature change of a body or system Short-wave radiation energy radiation at wavelengths in the visible near-ultraviolet and near-infrared spectra Stratification seawater differences in density between layers of seawater Stoichiometry calculation of reactants and products in chemical reactions Subconscious mind the part of the mind not currently in focal awareness Sustainability using resources mindfully so that their supply never runs out Sverdrup transport theoretical relationship between wind stress and the vertically integrated meridional transport of ocean water Thermohaline circulation the part of large-scale ocean circulation driven by global density gradients Thermodynamics field of science dealing with heat and temperature and their relationship to energy and work Transdisciplinary research several disciplines working jointly and move beyond discipline-specific approaches to address a common problem Unconscious mind processes in the mind that occur automatically and are not directly available to introspection UNCLOS United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea Upwelling rising of deep water to the surface of a water body Viscous media fluids that resist deformation by shear stress (i.e., motion of layers differing in velocity) Vision ability to think about imagine or plan a future Water balance equation summarizing all the in- and outflows of water of a water body