Felix Mark is a marine ecophysiologist at Alfred Wegener Institute. He investigates the effects of climate change on two closely-related fish species in the Arctic. Due to rising water temperatures, the Atlantic cod is moving northwards and might take over the habitat of the native polar cod.
Learn from Hans-Otto Pörtner, coordinating lead author of the fifth IPCC report, how the ocean really fares. Follow Felix Mark to the Arctic, as he sets out to investigate how fish react to their changing environment. And join Jelle Bijma on a journey into the past, as he tries to unveil the archive of the history of Earth.
• The ocean - A changing ecosystem
• Atlantic and Polar Cod under stress
• Traces of the past
Few sea inhabitants are affected so strongly by the rising temperatures and the drop in the pH value of the oceans than the stony coral. Ocean acidification means that the corals run out of energy to form their lime skeleton. In addition, the rise in water temperature prevents the symbiosis between the corals and unicellular algae, the so-called zooxanthellae. These zooxanthellae live in the coral, supply it with energy and nutrients and also give it its colour. Temperature stress leads corals to reject their zooxanthellae. This causes the corals to pale and frequently to die due to the lack of energy supply. Scientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute currently wish to find out how quickly the coral reefs are changing and whether the animals are able to adapt to the environmental changes.
Over the past 200 years, our planet’s oceans have absorbed more than a quarter of all anthropogenic carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. As a result, their acidity has increased by nearly 30 percent their acidity has increased by nearly 30 percent since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. In this regard, the water’s pH value isn’t constant; it varies both seasonally and regionally. The lowest values naturally occur in winter. But that could soon change, since they could be shifted to the summer by climate change, as an international team including experts from the Alfred Wegener Institute recently demonstrated. If this comes
A new study in the prestigious journal Science Advances shows that stress from rising water temperatures reduces ability of corals to adapt to ocean acidification.
Team of reseachers have provided an exceptionally comprehensive assessment of the status quo and future of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean that surrounds it.