Scientists at this year's American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Boston unveiled the first comprehensive global map of humanity's cumulative impact on the oceans.

According to the new study, which is the first to integrate multiple drivers of current human impact on oceans, the ocean is confronting a "multi-jeopardy" situation. “The water is becoming warmer, circulation patterns are changing in unpredictable ways, and oceans are becoming acidic,” says Gretchen Hofmann, a molecular physiologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

The study concludes that there is no oceanic area unaffected by human influence. Combined factors including over-fishing, coastal development, shipping traffic, and pollution run-off, threaten the existence of marine organisms in many ways, and make our impact on the oceans very complex. Scientists, in recent months, have also reported the giant "dead zone" off the coast of Washington is expanding, not to mention the vast islands of plastic trash forming in the Pacific.

The complexity of the ocean environment also complicates the research being conducted by scientists to study and monitor marine species.