Rising seawater temperatures and increased nutrient concentrations could lead to a decline of the bladder wrack Fucus vesiculosus in the Baltic Sea in the future, according to experiments conducted by marine scientists from Kiel and Rostock.
According to a study conducted by marine biologists of GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel and Rostock University within the German research network BIOACID (Biological Impacts of Ocean Acidification), eutrophication — that is already known for its negative effects — and
rising seawater temperatures could lead to a decline of the bladder wrack in the Baltic Sea.
«Today, we are facing rising carbon dioxide contents in the atmosphere through human activities, and the amount of oxygen in the ocean may drop correspondingly in the face of
rising seawater temperatures,» Lyons said.
Thus, the data suggests that
rising seawater temperature caused by climate change has buffered against measures for the protection of the Baltic Sea.
Not exact matches
When the team warmed tanks of
seawater, they found phytoplankton grew slightly faster with every degree of
temperature rise.
The pre-stress conditions are expected to disappear when
seawater temperatures rise by as little as 0.5 °C, such as predicted for the near future.
Most Antarctic researchers chalk this up to warm
seawater melting the floating ice shelves at their bases;
seawater temperatures there have
risen since the 1970s, in part because of global
temperature increases.
Sea level
rise has two primary components: the expansion in volume of
seawater with increased
temperature and the addition of water in ocean basins from the melting of land - locked ice, including Antarctica and Greenland.
As the Earth warms and sea level
rises, it is inundated with
seawater, which is 12 - 15 degrees warmer than the average air
temperature.
Any projected adverse impacts of
rising temperatures or declining
seawater and freshwater pH levels («acidification») will be largely mitigated through phenotypic adaptation or evolution during the many decades to centuries it is expected to take for pH levels to fall.
That may seem small at first, but over time, especially when combined with other sources of sea level
rise such as melting Greenland glaciers and the expansion of
seawater as ocean
temperatures increase, it adds up.
A small
rise or fall in
temperature seemed likely to cause a
rise or fall in the gas levels (for example, when
seawater got warmer it would evaporate some CO2 into the atmosphere, whereas it would absorb the gas during a cooling period).
Coral reefs are threatened by
rising water
temperatures, ocean acidification, and sea - level
rise.3, 5 Coral reefs typically live within a specific range of
temperature, light, and concentration of carbonate in
seawater.6 When increases in ocean
temperature or ultraviolet light stress the corals, they lose their colorful algae, leaving only transparent coral tissue covering their white calcium - carbonate skeletons.6 This phenomenon is called coral bleaching.