What is climate change doing to our seas?

As we have spoken on other occasions, climate change affects every corner of the planet. And of course, it was not going to be less in the seas and oceans. Its devastating effects are changing living conditions in all the seas of the planet.

For now, the effect that is making the most changes in living conditions in the seas is the increase in temperatures in surface waters. What is climate change doing to our seas?

Increase in sea temperatures

Surface water temperatures are increasing and with it, phytoplankton, which is the basis of all food for the food chain in the seas, is decreasing. Meteorological phenomena and changes in temperature cause changes in ocean currents.

How can changes in ocean currents affect species? It's very simple, phytoplankton are made up of microscopic plants that bloom and are found in water. As currents and their patterns of circulation change, the food of many species that sustain them changes location. In this way, they force the species to move and change their habitat, running the risk of facing other types of more lethal predators and forcing themselves to adapt to new conditions.

All this causes more negative impacts on marine ecosystems and reduces the chances of survival of many species.

A study on climate change in the seas

A study has identified the six major areas of the planet that would have to be safeguarded if life is to continue to exist in the sea. The study is conducted by Australian, New Zealand and Spanish researchers. In order to investigate the characteristics of ecosystems and how climate change affects them, they have used data from a constellation of satellites collected in the last 30 years to find out how climate change is affecting the seas of the entire planet.

Thanks to the development of technology, it has been possible to obtain images of how climate change affects the seas around the world in a graphic resolution not reached until now. Although basic physics says that conditions in a liquid medium end up being the same everywhere, in the vastness of the ocean things are not like that. For this reason, global warming is not being the same in all waters and it is not just a question of latitude.

Effects of climate change on the seas

The effects that climate change is causing in the seas, or at least the most notable and immediate, are:

• Warming of surface waters
• Decreased chlorophyll production in plants
• Changes in the patterns of ocean currents

The study has been published in Science Advances, and shows two opposing trends. On the one hand, warming of surface waters has not stopped increasing since the 80s of the last century. On the other hand, the concentration of chlorophyll per cubic meter has not stopped decreasing since then. The work has also measured a third variable: sea currents, those responsible for distributing heat throughout the planet and, in conjunction with atmospheric movements, also those of meteorological weather. Although there is great heterogeneity, in general these marine rivers are slowing down.

Combining all these factors is how scientists have been able to specify in each area and have been able to measure the impacts of climate change on a regional and local scale. The polar regions are those that are suffering a greater relative increase in the temperatures of their waters and it is where, when the fresh water from the melt comes into action, it upsets the marine currents. In terms of biodiversity, both the North Atlantic and the northern Pacific fringe are experiencing a warming whose impact on marine biodiversity is yet to be determined.

As you can see, climate change is affecting all corners of the planet and the more it is studied, the more awareness there is that the effects are real and they do not stop increasing.