Climate change causing radical North Sea ecosystem shift
By Brandon Keim, October 28, 2009 Fueled by previously unappreciated links between climate and ecology, the North Sea has undergone a radical ecological shift in the last half-century, say scientists. The very shape of the food web has changed, from plankton on up to the cod and flatfish that once dominated the icy waters, supporting rich commercial fisheries. They’ve been largely replaced by jellyfish and crabs. The full scope of the change has gone relatively unnoticed, and could foreshadow changes in waters around the world. “Climate-driven changes in the biology of the sea are largely hidden from view,” said Richard Kirby, a University of Plymouth marine biologist and Royal Society Research Fellow. “If similar changes occurred in a temperate forest, we would be shocked.” In a study published in the upcoming December Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Kirby and Gregory Beaugrand, an oceanologist at the Lille University of Science and Technology, analyze decades of climate and ecosystem data gathered in the North Sea, a pocket of ocean bordered by the United Kingdom and Scandinavia. Though relatively small, the North Sea has historically been a fabulously fertile fishing ground. Even now, it provides about five percent of the global fish harvest — but that’s barely a third of what it yielded just a century ago. Declining stocks have been blamed almost entirely on overfishing. However, though fishing pressures have indeed been intense, some scientists have suspected that water temperatures are also a factor. Over the last quarter-century, the North Sea’s upper layers have warmed by about 2 degrees Fahrenheit. That seems like little, but in the North Sea, summer and winter water temperatures differ by just a few degrees. Even a few degrees of change is relatively profound, and enough to disrupt aquatic organisms accustomed to functioning in a very narrow thermal range. … “The effect of climate on the marine food web, the way small changes can be amplified through the web, that’s the moral of the story here,” said Kirby. “And food webs everywhere will be affected in a similar way.” …
“Climate-driven changes in the biology of the sea are largely hidden from view,” said Richard Kirby, a University of Plymouth marine biologist and Royal Society Research Fellow. “If similar changes occurred in a temperate forest, we would be shocked."
Naah. They (similar changes in temperate forests) ARE happening, and everybody is in the same mass denial that preceded the Holocaust.
I grew up fishing every day in summer off Plum Island in Massachusetts. Our arms would ache by the end of the day, from hauling up cod after flounder after striper. Then rather suddenly, it turned out, you could sit all day without a nibble. About 20 years ago, that happened.