If the sea became filmed with oil, how will climate on Earth change?

Question

If our sea became covered with a thin film of oil due to various pollutants, what would be the climatic changes that would result? Could this feasibly ever happen?

Answer 1

Te144 gave you a good and full answer: life as we know it cannot exist on earth if water from the oceans cannot evaporate. But this will never happen because all the oil on earth (excuse my pun) is only a drop in the ocean, compared to all the water.

While on the subject, an interesting fact about water is that - unlike other fluids - it doesn't get heavier when colder.

Water is heaviest at 4 degrees Celsius, then it gets lighter when colder. That's the reason the bottom of all oceans is always 4 C. Water at that temperature sinks and stay there.

But if water was getting heavier at lower temperature, ice would sink in the oceans and that would also create a much different climate on earth because if the surface would still get warmed up by the sun in tropical regions, the ocean wouldn't be the great temperature regulator it is today and the climate worldwide would be much more continental, i.e. very cold winter and very hot summer. Very cold nights and very warm days.

Water is truly amazing and really the most needed element for life as we know it. It is the only solvent that allows the existance of amino-acids, the base of all life. And to work, temperature must be between freezing and boiling point. Some scientists believe life may exist in a solvent like liquid methane but without liquid water, the chances are very slim to see life anywhere outside our earth.

Answer 2

It's unimaginable that such could happen considering the dynamism of the oceans and seas, but if it did, for a significant period of time with a significant amount of coverage, evaporation would likely slow way down affecting weather patterns, reducing the formation of clouds so rain would diminish.  Obviously, the loss of cloud cover and snow covering the ground would permit more sunlight hitting the entire face of the earth eventually raising temperatures.  With higher temperatures, loss of crop and livestock growth, and oceanic life dying off due to the loss of oxygen, the great mass of human life would die off.  Some humans and other lesser species would survive through ingenuity, but the recovery of civilization would take 200 or 300 years to reestablish a viable, peaceful, productive society based on the new conditions..

Answer 3

wouldn't happen. a lot of pollution is surfactants like soap. this lowers the surface tension and the oil sinks