The Iran war’s toxic impact on one of the planet’s most unique seas

The conflict in the Middle East is shaping up to be yet another US war with a toxic legacy .

Bombs and missiles have released heavy metals and harmful chemicals into the atmosphere. US-Israeli and Iranian strikes have hit oil facilities, igniting fires that covered Tehran in thick black smoke and oil-saturated rain , exposing millions to pollution which could have long-lasting health impacts.

And these strikes are also affecting the Persian Gulf. Attacks on ships and oil infrastructure in the waterway have produced oil spills visible from space .

A spill from a tanker has temporarily closed beaches in the Emirate of Umm Al Quwain with authorities working to contain the environmental impacts, according to an announcement Thursday by the United Arab Emirates Ministry of Climate Change and Environment.

It’s not been confirmed whether the spill is linked to Iranian attacks but it’s yet another sign of the huge risks faced by the Persian Gulf, one of the world’s most delicate and unique marine systems.

As the conflict continues, experts are warning of a broader contamination crisis.

For months, cargo ships and oil tankers have been targeted in the Strait of Hormuz, the vital shipping route for oil and gas between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.

The progression from vessel impact to environmental damage is clear to see in many cases, said Brian Barnes, who is part of a group of satellite oceanographers at the University of South Florida analyzing the effects of this war from afar.

“Some of the major ships that have been targeted, we see prolonged plumes, stretching for hundreds of kilometers away from the impact site,” Barnes said.

The Persian Gulf has long suffered from oil pollution, but research by Barnes and other scientists comparing March 2026, when fighting was intense, with the same period last year shows a sharp increase.

“What we’re seeing is twice the amount of surface oil in the Persian Gulf area relative to what we would expect in the absence of a major conflict,” Barnes said.

Although, he noted, satellite imagery can only show what is on the surface of the water and not the thickness of the oil, which would give a more accurate picture of the extent of the contamination.

What is harder to assess with limited physical access to the conflict-riddled waterway is the impact on marine wildlife.

The Persian Gulf hosts an ecosystem teeming with life. It is home to several species of sea turtles, hundreds of species of fish and the world’s second-largest population of dugongs, or sea cows.

“One of the world’s largest whale shark congregations occurs close to the South Pars oil field where Qatar and Iran meet,” said Bernhard Riegl, a professor at Nova Southeastern University who has studied the Persian Gulf for decades.

Sandy offshore islands and expansive seagrass beds make the Gulf an ideal habitat for nesting and breeding. Extensive mangrove forests and coral reef structures create protected nurseries for dolphins, seabirds, and whale sharks. Yet in springtime, traditionally the season for breeding, the war was raging.

Mahmut Serdar Alakus/Anadolu/Getty Images

Sentinel-2/European Space Agency

Only the hardiest marine life survives in these waters. Not only is the Persian Gulf one of the world’s hottest seas, but it also experiences sharp temperature changes throughout the year.

The water near Kuwait City, for example, goes from highs of around 36 degrees Celsius (97 Fahrenheit) in the height of summer to lows of around 16 degrees Celsius (60 Fahrenheit).

Razan Khalifa Al Mubarak, the UAE’s special envoy of the Minister of Foreign Affairs for Nature, called for an end to attacks on the Gulf in an editorial earlier this year.

“While the financial costs of damage can be calculated, the loss of ecosystems and species cannot. Once degraded, these systems may not recover,” she wrote.

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Contamination in the Gulf brings unique challenges as the body of water is relatively shallow — the deepest areas are only around 360 feet — and it is small, at 93,000 square miles. It also has only one entry and exit point connecting it to the open ocean: the Strait of Hormuz, which leads into the Gulf of Oman and the Indian Ocean beyond. This all means pollutants tend not to disperse or dilute easily.

No matter which country or vessel may be a target during this war, the repercussions will have wide impacts, Riegl said: “If we take a drop of oil and put it into the water on the Iranian side of the inflow into the Gulf, a year later it will be in Kuwait, two years later it will be on the Omani side of the Gulf and float out there.”

The 1991 Gulf War should be a cautionary tale, Riegl said. Retreating Iraqi forces set fire to hundreds of oil wells in Kuwait creating an environmental catastrophe felt throughout the Gulf.

Per-Anders Pettersson/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

“The shorelines were devastatingly affected,” Riegl said. “In fact, in many areas of Saudi (Arabia), if you go and dig in the sand, there’s still old oil in there. It’s just very hard to get rid of.”

An additional concern is the fact that tens of millions of Gulf residents rely on desalination plants, which convert seawater into drinking water.

The six countries which form the Gulf Cooperation Council produce around a third of the world’s desalinated water. Bahrain and Kuwait are almost entirely dependent on desalination for all drinking water. Oil pollution in the Gulf could damage these facilities, imperiling water supply .

When hundreds of millions of gallons were intentionally released into the Persian Gulf during the Iraq war, Kuwait had to rely on Saudi Arabia, Turkey and others to provide hundreds of water tankers and trucks to deliver bottled water.

One perhaps unexpected repercussion of environmental damage in the Persian Gulf is that it could undermine scientists’ understanding of the impacts climate change will have on the world’s seas.

The Gulf’s high temperatures are roughly where marine tropics are expected to be around the year 2100, Riegl said.

Karim Sahib/AFP/Getty Images

The Gulf has “some of the most… valuable genetics of any sea on Earth, because a lot of the adaptation that will need to be done has already been achieved in the Gulf.”

“If we want to know what the ocean at large will look like at the end of the century,”he added, “the Gulf is the area to look at.”

CNN’s Kim Kelaita and Hiba Khurram contributed reporting.

中东冲突正逐渐演变成美国发动的又一场战争，并留下难以磨灭的恶果。

炸弹和导弹将重金属和有害化学物质释放到大气中。美国、以色列和伊朗的空袭击中了石油设施，引发的大火使德黑兰笼罩在浓厚的黑烟和油雨之中，数百万人暴露于可能造成长期健康影响的污染之中。

这些袭击也影响到了波斯湾。对航道上船只和石油基础设施的袭击造成了从太空都能看到的石油泄漏。

据阿联酋气候变化与环境部周四发布的消息，一艘油轮发生泄漏事故，导致乌姆盖万酋长国的多个海滩暂时关闭，当局正在努力控制其对环境的影响。

目前尚未证实此次漏油事件是否与伊朗的袭击有关，但这再次表明波斯湾面临着巨大的风险，波斯湾是世界上最脆弱、最独特的海洋系统之一。

随着冲突持续，专家警告称，可能会出现更大范围的污染危机。

数月以来，霍尔木兹海峡（波斯湾和阿曼湾之间重要的石油和天然气运输通道）的货船和油轮一直是袭击目标。

南佛罗里达大学卫星海洋学家小组的成员布莱恩·巴恩斯表示，在许多情况下，从船舶撞击到环境破坏的演变过程是显而易见的。该小组正在从远处分析这场战争的影响。

巴恩斯说：“我们看到一些大型船只遭到袭击后，留下了绵延数百公里的烟柱，这些烟柱从撞击点一直延伸到远处。”

波斯湾长期以来饱受石油污染之苦，但巴恩斯和其他科学家的研究将 2026 年 3 月（当时战斗十分激烈）与去年同期进行了比较，结果显示污染急剧加剧。

巴恩斯说：“我们看到波斯湾地区的海面石油含量是如果没有重大冲突时我们预期含量的两倍。”

不过，他指出，卫星图像只能显示水面上的情况，而不能显示油层的厚度，而油层的厚度可以更准确地反映污染的范围。

由于难以实际进入冲突不断的水域，因此更难评估其对海洋野生动物的影响。

波斯湾拥有一个生机勃勃的生态系统。这里栖息着多种海龟、数百种鱼类，以及世界第二大儒艮种群。

“世界上规模最大的鲸鲨聚集地之一就位于卡塔尔和伊朗交界的南帕尔斯油田附近，”诺瓦东南大学教授伯恩哈德·里格尔说道，他研究波斯湾已有数十年之久。

海湾内遍布沙质近海岛屿和广袤的海草床，是筑巢和繁殖的理想栖息地。大片红树林和珊瑚礁为海豚、海鸟和鲸鲨提供了安全的育苗场所。然而，在传统的繁殖季节——春季，战争却肆虐着。

马赫穆特·瑟达尔·阿拉库斯/阿纳多卢/盖蒂图片社

哨兵-2号/欧洲航天局

只有最顽强的海洋生物才能在这些水域生存。波斯湾不仅是世界上最热的海域之一，而且全年温度变化剧烈。

例如，科威特城附近的水温在盛夏时节最高可达约 36 摄氏度（97 华氏度），而在冬季最低可达约 16 摄氏度（60 华氏度）。

阿联酋外交部自然事务特使拉赞·哈利法·穆巴拉克今年早些时候在一篇社论中呼吁停止对海湾地区的袭击。

她写道：“虽然经济损失可以计算，但生态系统和物种的损失却无法计算。一旦退化，这些系统可能无法恢复。”

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由于海湾水域相对较浅（最深处仅约360英尺），且面积较小（仅93,000平方英里），因此海湾的污染问题面临着独特的挑战。此外，它与外海仅有一个出入口：霍尔木兹海峡，由此可进入阿曼湾，进而进入印度洋。所有这些因素都意味着污染物难以扩散或稀释。

里格尔说，无论这场战争中哪个国家或船只成为目标，其后果都将产生广泛的影响：“如果我们把一滴油滴到伊朗一侧的海湾入海口，一年后它就会出现在科威特，两年后它就会出现在阿曼一侧的海湾，并漂浮到那里。”

里格尔说，1991年的海湾战争应该成为一个警示故事。撤退的伊拉克军队在科威特点燃了数百口油井，造成了一场波及整个海湾地区的环境灾难。

Per-Anders Pettersson/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

“海岸线遭受了毁灭性的影响，”里格尔说。“事实上，在沙特阿拉伯的许多地区，如果你去挖沙子，里面仍然会有残留的石油。只是很难清除。”

另一个令人担忧的问题是，数千万海湾居民依赖海水淡化厂将海水转化为饮用水。

海湾合作委员会六个成员国生产全球约三分之一的淡化水。巴林和科威特几乎完全依赖海水淡化来获取饮用水。海湾地区的石油污染可能会损坏这些设施，危及供水。

在伊拉克战争期间，数亿加仑的水被故意排放到波斯湾，科威特不得不依靠沙特阿拉伯、土耳其和其他国家提供数百辆水罐车和卡车来运送瓶装水。

波斯湾环境破坏可能带来的一个意想不到的后果是，它可能会削弱科学家对气候变化将对世界海洋产生的影响的理解。

里格尔说，墨西哥湾的高温大致相当于预计到 2100 年左右海洋热带地区的温度。

Karim Sahib/AFP/Getty Images

墨西哥湾拥有“地球上任何海洋中最……最有价值的遗传资源，因为墨西哥湾已经完成了许多需要进行的适应性进化。”

“如果我们想知道本世纪末整个海洋会是什么样子，”他补充说，“那么墨西哥湾就是我们应该关注的区域。”

美国有线电视新闻网 (CNN) 的 Kim Kelaita 和 Hiba Khurram 提供了报道。