Marine Science.

With the recent marine documentaries broadcasted on television, the scientific community and marine jobs/degrees are starting to become more and more popular through exposure and raising awareness. Finally, I won’t have to answer the question “so you’re a scuba-diver?” or “you take photographs of the oceans?” when I tell people I study Oceanography.

Looking back at Arcachon Bay from the research vessel

Marine science isn’t all about diving with cetaceans or shark tagging, but this is what primarily attracts people to study Marine Biology. But now, finally, more people are beginning to want to study our oceans because they want to make a difference to help save our planet, whether that be, through marine conservation, or through coding and modelling future ice scenarios in the polar regions. The Attenborough Effect has made me realise that there are more individuals determined to raise awareness on these future scenarios.

Everyone is becoming more motivated to do something to help save our oceans, and with that there is a necessity for more jobs to be created as well as more funding and solutions needed. This makes me really happy as it means that finally people are realising that we need to act to save the planet, albeit through education and learning, we should act and change our habits.

So, what is Marine Science?

Our oceans account for about 70% of the Earth’s surface, they are important yet increasingly vulnerable. And yet, we still know more about our Solar System than the deep ocean. Oceanography is the study of physical, biological and chemical aspects of the ocean. I have learnt about sea level rise, seawater properties, biogeochemistry, ecosystems, ocean acidification, past environments, ocean waves and currents, ocean heat content, and the list goes all. Everything learnt is relevant to present and future scenarios, which is linked evidently to climate change. This is one of the main reasons why I think marine science studies is so applicable to present day and why it is appealing to more people and I cannot wait to see what happens in the future regarding marine jobs and degrees.