Go home, fish. You're drunk.

According to a study published in Nature, climate change has led to rising levels of carbon dioxide in the ocean, which, in turn, could lead fish to become intoxicated.



The condition is called hypercapnia and occurs when carbon dioxide builds up in the bloodstream.

"The carbon dioxide affects their brains and they lose their sense of direction and ability to find their way home," Ben McNeil, a climate scientist at University of New South Wales and lead author of the paper, explained in a statement. "They don’t even know where their predators are."

“If atmospheric carbon dioxide pollution continues to rise, fish and other marine creatures in CO2 hotspots in the Southern, Pacific and North Atlantic oceans will experience episodes of hypercapnia by the middle of this century – much sooner than had been predicted, and with more damaging effects than thought," he added.