Warming air and oceans is pushing marine life towards the poles faster than their land-dwelling counterparts.
A three-year study found aquatic species have been changing their breeding, feeding and migration habits due to warming oceans. Scientists have seen changes in marine species' distribution and where they live. The variations have been more dramatic than what has been observed on dry land, a University of Santa Barbara press release reported.
"The leading edge or front-line of marine species distributions is moving toward the poles at an average of 72 kilometers (about 45 miles) per decade -- considerably faster than terrestrial species, which are moving poleward at an average of 6 kilometers (about 4 miles) per decade," lead author Elvira Poloczanska, a research scientist with Australia's national science agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Marine and Atmospheric Research, said.
"This is occurring even though sea surface temperatures are warming three times slower than land temperatures," she said.
Oceans cover over 70 percent of the globe, but researchers previously knew very little about impact of climate change on the marine population.
"The effects of climate change on marine species have not been a major focus of past IPCC reports because no one had done the work to pull together all the disparate observations from around the world. This study provides a solid basis for including marine impacts in the latest global accounting of how climate change is affecting our world." Carrie Kappel, a former Santa Barbara National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) associate, said.
Past studies have attempted to asses marine damage through terrestrial data, this study focused only on aquatic life.
"What [the study] reveals is that the changes occurring on land are being matched by the oceans. And far from being a buffer and displaying more minor changes, what we're seeing is a far stronger response from the oceans," Camille Parmesan, professor in the Department of Integrative Biology at University of Texas at Austin, said.
The study found the average displacement of species was up to 10 times higher than what could be found on land.
Phytoplankton, zooplankton, and bony fish were most affected by warming waters.
"Researchers also found that the timing of spring events in the oceans had advanced by more than four days, nearly twice the figure for land. The strength of response varied among species, but again, the research showed the greatest response -- up to 11 days in advancement -- occurred in invertebrate zooplankton and larval bony fish," the press release stated.
Opposite responses in cold-water and warm-water species helped researcher pinpoint climate change as the cause of the phenomenon. Eighty-one percent of the study's observations were consistent with predicted climate change related responses.
