Search Here

Due to global warming, scientists are examining the Pacific Ocean on the West Coast as a model for climatic change. With increasing acidification and low-oxygen zones, oceans from British Columbia to Mexico will give early warning signals.

Scientists from the University of Washington probed their impact on the fish and invertebrate physiology, and how they affected shellfish and squid, finding a lot of negative results.

"Our research recognizes that these climate change stressors will co-occur, essentially piling on top of one another," Terrie Klinger, co-author of the study, said in a press release. "We know that along the West Coast temperature and acidity are increasing, and at the same time, hypoxia is spreading. Many organisms will be challenged to tolerate these simultaneous stressors, even though they might be able to tolerate individual stressors when they occur on their own."

With rising carbon dioxide emissions as well as the acidity of the ocean, there will be an increase in acidity due to the change in the chemistry of the seawater, especially organisms with calcium carbonate shells or skeletons such as oysters and corals.

Areas that have hypoxia, or low-oxygen conditions, tend to kill huge fish and shellfish schools, due to an increase in the areas with these factors.

"Along this coast, we have relatively intensified conditions of ocean acidification compared with other places. And at the same time we have hypoxic events that can further stress marine organisms," Klinger said. "Conditions observed along our coast now are forecast for the global ocean decades in the future. Along the West Coast, it's as if the future is here now."

The study was published in the Jan. 1,2016 issue of BioScience.