Oceans cover 71% of our planet’s surface and make up 95% of all the space available to life. They are a life-support system for Earth and a global common that provide us with free goods and services, from the food we eat to the oxygen we breathe. The oceans also regulate the global climate; they mediate temperature and drive the weather, determining rainfall, droughts, and floods. They are also the world’s largest store of carbon, where an estimated 83% of the global carbon cycle is circulated through marine waters as it controls important exchanges between oxygen and carbon dioxide.
