Global Warming in Arctic Ocean May Mean Less Food
AEN News
Reno, NV - A warmer Arctic Ocean may mean less food for the birds, fish,
and baleen whales and be a significant detriment to that fragile and
interconnected polar ecosystem, and that doesn't bode well for other
ocean ecosystems in the future.
That's the word from University of Miami Rosenstiel School's Dr. Sharon
Smith who spoke on "Potentially Dramatic Changes in the Pelagic
Ecosystems of the Marginal Seas of the Arctic Ocean due to Anthropogenic
Warming," Monday afternoon at the American Geophysical Union's 2006
Ocean Sciences Meeting in Honolulu.
"We've seen models of global climate change for more than 20 years,
and they have shown us that warming associated with increased, man-made
carbon dioxide emissions will appear first - and be the most intense -
in the Arctic," Smith said. "But what extensive satellite imagery
confirms is that this Arctic warming is happening already. Permanent
ice is thinning, and the duration of ice-free conditions is extending.
This is changing currents and affecting feeding patterns and food
source availability for the animal life there."
According to Smith, the match of the physical forcing and the life
cycles of Arctic marine organisms is crucial; both need to be relatively
predictable in time and space for evolution of this food web to have
taken place. Global warming is acting to disrupt predictability, a
situation that could cause the rapid demise of marine mammals and
birds upon which subsistence human populations depend.
A biological oceanographer, Smith has spent her career examining some
of the smallest components of food webs. She is the co-director of
the National Science Foundation/National Institute of Environmental
Health Science Oceans and Human Health Center that is based at the
University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric
Science as well as a professor in marine biology and fisheries
there.
Her presentation was part of a session titled, Observations
of Anthropogenic Climate Change in the Oceans and their Implications
for Society II: Arctic and Ecosystem Responses. Dr. Rana A. Fine,
also a UM Rosenstiel School faculty member, presided over the
session with Dr. Richard Feely from NOAA's Pacific Marine
Environmental Laboratory
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