Tuesday, June 28, 2011

How will climate change impact the marine life in our seas and oceans?

Climate change could soon create huge problems for marine ecosystems in the Baltic Sea because Baltic sea is becoming less salty. The reason why Baltic sea is becoming more and more freshwater sea is because of the increase in precipitation in the river basins that flow into the Baltic Sea.

Less salty sea will in years to come cause extinction of many marine species leading to a huge problems in marine food chain. The decreased salinity together with overfishing and pollution could in years to come completely devastate Baltic's marine life creating irreparable environmental damage.

Climate change is not having huge impact solely on Baltic sea but on other seas and oceans too. For instance, scientists have recently noticed the arrival of a new species of plankton in the north Atlantic coming from the Pacific. If this species of plankton continues to spread further across the Atlantic it could disrupt the current functioning of marine food web because this is the species that belongs at the very base of the marine food web.

The new species are appearing in Atlantic ocean because of the rapid melting of Arctic which allows many species to pass through and enter the Atlantic waters. If Arctic continues its current melting trend this will lead to a huge changes in marine life in Atlantic and could have dramatic effect on fisheries.

The scientists still cannot fully predict what effect will interaction between new and native marine species will have on marine food web. This is because the migration of marine species from one place to another usually occurs at varying speeds.

Among the seas most threatened with climate change is also the Mediterranean sea. The scientists predict Mediterranean sea could see one third of its 75 fish species threatened and six extinct by 2060 if current warming trend at the Mediterranean continues.

Climate change certainly looks more likely to create problems for many of our seas and oceans than to create some positive impact. This is the reason why science needs to learn much more about what is happening in our seas and oceans so we could at least have some sort of chance to overturn these negative effects.

No comments:

Post a Comment