The Impacts of Climate Change and Related Changes in the Atmosphere on the Oceans

The Technical Abstract of the First Global Integrated Marine Assessment on “The Impacts of Climate Change and Related Changes in the Atmosphere on the Oceans” is based upon the First Global Integrated Marine Assessment – World Ocean Assessment I – released in January 2016, and, in particular, upon the Summary of that Assessment, which was approved by the United Nations General Assembly in December 2015. It has been prepared in accordance with the programme of work for the period 2017-2020 for the second cycle of the Regular Process which was adopted by the Ad Hoc Working Group of the Whole on the Regular Process in August 2016 and endorsed by the General Assembly in December 2016. This provides for, inter alia, support for other ongoing ocean-related intergovernmental processes, including the preparation of Technical Abstracts specifically tailored to meet the needs of, among other intergovernmental processes, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the United Nations Open-ended Informal Consultative Process on Oceans and the Law of the Sea (which, in 2017, focuses its discussions on the theme “The effects of climate change on oceans”). In this regard, the Technical Abstract provides a synthesis of the information in World Ocean Assessment I and does not introduce any new material or interpretation of the information presented in World Ocean Assessment I.