Global Warming

Ocean Life Responding Dramatically to Climate Change

Warming oceans are causing marine life to change how they breed, feed and migrate.

An international team of researchers has found that marine life is adapting to a warming climate far more quickly than land-based life.

Their three-year study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, reveals that marine species are moving away from the tropics at an average of 45 miles per decade, compared to only 4 miles per decade for those on land.

The ocean life is mainly shifting toward the poles in search of cooler waters as the world’s oceans have absorbed about 80 percent of the heat added to the global climate in recent decades.

The study used an average of about 40 years of observations from earlier research.

It found that phytoplankton, at the base of the ocean’s food chain, are now blooming an average of six days earlier in the season.

Baby fish appear to be hatching about 11 days earlier in the season.

Many marine species are now going into their seasonal breeding cycles an average of 4.4 days earlier, which is almost twice as early as land animals.