Professor Hoegh-Guldberg notes today that ocean temperatures haven't risen and the chemistry of the water changed as fast as they are now for about 65 million years.

“Oceans have absorbed over 90 per cent of the heat arising from human-induced greenhouse gas emissions and have soaked up around 30 per cent of the carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels," he said in a statement put out by the university today.



“The rate at which energy has been entering the ocean is phenomenal, equivalent to the addition of two atomic bombs every second,” he said.

While the IPCC report is in part about adaptation, there's not a lot of potential for many species to change in a hurry:



“The ability of ocean species to adapt genetically to increasing levels of stress brought on by rising temperatures and increased ocean acidification is not occurring fast enough, given the long generation times of many organisms such as corals and fish,” Professor Hoegh-Guldberg said.

And the reversal of ocean chemistry changes won't be speedy either - he puts it in the order of tens of thousands of years.