Andrew S. Brierley & Michael J. Kingsford, Current Biology, Vol. 19, 2009: Impacts of Climate Change on Marine Organisms and Ecosystems

Current Biology, Vol. 19, No. 14 (28 July 2009) R602-R614; doi:10.1016/j.cub.2009.05.046

Impacts of Climate Change on Marine Organisms and Ecosystems

Andrew S. Brierley^{1, ,} and Michael J. Kingsford²

¹Pelagic Ecology Research Group, Gatty Marine Laboratory, School of Biology, University of St Andrews, Fife, KY16 8LB, Scotland, U.K.

²School of Marine and Tropical Biology, and ARC Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University, Townsville, QLD 4811, Australia

Available online 27 July 2009.

Abstract

Human activities are releasing gigatonnes of carbon to the Earth's atmosphere annually. Direct consequences of cumulative post-industrial emissions include increasing global temperature, perturbed regional weather patterns, rising sea levels, acidifying oceans, changed nutrient loads and altered ocean circulation. These and other physical consequences are affecting marine biological processes from genes to ecosystems, over scales from rock pools to ocean basins, impacting ecosystem services and threatening human food security. The rates of physical change are unprecedented in some cases. Biological change is likely to be commensurately quick, although the resistance and resilience of organisms and ecosystems is highly variable. Biological changes founded in physiological response manifest as species range-changes, invasions and extinctions, and ecosystem regime shifts. Given the essential roles that oceans play in planetary function and provision of human sustenance, the grand challenge is to intervene before more tipping points are passed and marine ecosystems follow less-buffered terrestrial systems further down a spiral of decline. Although ocean bioengineering may alleviate change, this is not without risk. The principal brake to climate change remains reduced CO₂ emissions that marine scientists and custodians of the marine environment can lobby for and contribute to. This review describes present-day climate change, setting it in context with historical change, considers consequences of climate change for marine biological processes now and in to the future, and discusses contributions that marine systems could play in mitigating the impacts of global climate change.

Article Outline

Main Text

Introduction

Oceans, Life and Planetary-Scale Processes

Timescales of Temperature Change

Spatial Scales of Temperature Change

Other Key Physical Changes

Acidification

Reducing Dissolved Oxygen Concentration

Sea Level Rise

Impacts of Climate Change — from Genes to Ecosystems

Impacts of Climate Change on Ecosystems: Selected Case Studies

Open Ocean Environments

Polar Seas and Sea Ice Systems

Coral Reefs

Combined Effects of Climate Change and Other Impacts

Responding to Climate Change

Acknowledgements

References