Watch the webcast here live on April 25, 10:15 a.m. EDT.

The health of the global ocean is being reshaped by a convergence of rapid environmental change and expanding human activity. Climate-driven stressors—including ocean warming, acidification, and deoxygenation—are altering marine biogeochemistry and ecosystems at unprecedented rates, while nutrient enrichment and coastal development are intensifying harmful algal blooms and ecosystem degradation. At the same time, new industrial activities such as deep-sea mining are poised to affect some of Earth’s least understood and most vulnerable ecosystems.

This symposium brings together leading experts in ocean acidification, ocean deoxygenation, harmful algal blooms, coral reef ecosystems, and deep-sea ecosystems and mining to examine ocean health as an integrated, coupled system. Rather than treating these challenges in isolation, the session will focus on how multiple stressors interact, where nonlinear responses and potential tipping points are emerging, and which uncertainties most constrain scientific understanding and decision-making.

Through a series of short, synthesis-oriented presentations followed by moderated discussion, speakers will explore common mechanisms, contrasting time scales of impact and recovery, and the implications of spatial mismatches between stressors, ecosystems, and governance frameworks. The symposium will highlight sentinel ecosystems such as coral reefs, frontier systems such as the deep sea, and processes with global consequences for biodiversity, biogeochemical cycles, and human well-being.

The session is designed to foster cross-disciplinary dialogue, identify priorities for future research and monitoring, and clarify the scientific challenges that must be addressed to assess risks to ocean health over the coming decades.

Organizer:

Lee R. Kump
Dean and Professor of Geosciences
The Pennsylvania State University - University Park

Speakers: