| Ocean Map Charts Path of Human Destruction |
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By Eli Kintisch The map, presented here at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (publisher of ScienceNOW)--and published tomorrow in Science--combines 17 anthropogenic stressors, including coastal runoff and pollution, warming water temperature due to human-induced climate change, oil rigs that damage the sea floor, and five different kinds of fishing. Hundreds of experts worked to weigh and compare the stressors, overlaying them on top of maps that the scientists built of various ecosystems, with data obtained from shipping maps, satellite imagery, and scientific buoys. Then marine scientists modeled how different ecosystems would be affected by the stressors, mapping so-called impact scores onto square-kilometer-sized parcels worldwide. The scores correspond to colored pixels on the new map. Click to view entire article at ScienceNOW Click to view 'A Global Map of Human Impacts to Marine Ecosystems'
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