• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
  FEATURED
Danske Bank Quits New Fossil Fuel Financing January 23, 2023
Extreme Warming Ahead Even as Worst-Case Scenarios Grow ‘Obsolete’ January 23, 2023
Notley Scorches Federal Just Transition Bill as Fossil CEO Calls for Oilsands Boom January 23, 2023
IRON OXIDE: New Battery Brings Long-Duration Storage to Grids, 750 Jobs to West Virginia January 23, 2023
BREAKING: GFANZ Banks, Investors Pour Hundreds of Billions into Fossil Fuels January 17, 2023
Next
Prev

Warming seas cut marine mammals’ survival chances

September 13, 2021
Reading time: 3 minutes
Primary Author: Tim Radford

 

Warmer waters force endangered whales to move into the danger zone to find food, and leave other marine mammals hungry.

LONDON, 13 September, 2021 − Thanks to climate change, things are going wrong for the right whale. As the Atlantic warms, one ocean giant has had to shift its feeding grounds − and into more dangerous unprotected waters. Other marine mammals will find it harder to survive.

  • The climate news you need. Subscribe now to our engaging new weekly digest.
  • You’ll receive exclusive, never-before-seen-content, distilled and delivered to your inbox every weekend.
  • The Weekender: Succinct, solutions-focused, and designed with the discerning reader in mind.
New!
Subscribe

Eubalaena glacialis, or the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale, may in the last decade have lost more than a quarter of its population. There could be only 356 individuals left.

And a second, separate study reports that, thanks to climate change, the future also looks lean for ringed seals and other Arctic marine predators: as greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase, and seas get warmer, the fish these mammals depend on will get smaller, and more scarce.

US scientists report in the journal Oceanography that, because of a shift in ocean temperatures in the Gulf of Maine − their traditional and protected habitat − the abundance of copepods or tiny crustaceans that nourish the giant mammals has fallen. This in turn has reduced the rates of calving, and forced the whales from their favourite mid-summer feeding grounds to the cooler waters of the Gulf of St Lawrence.

These new feeding grounds have no protection in place to prevent ship strikes, or entanglement in fishing gear. In 2017, biologists confirmed 17 right whale deaths in Canadian waters. Ten were found dead in 2019. In the last two years, there have been four identified deaths. The creature has a normal lifespan of about 70 years.

“We’ve never seen such drastic change so quickly. We’re rolling the dice, and we don’t know exactly what will happen”

The Gulf of Maine has been warming at depth, as ocean currents change in response to the climate emergency. The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, a part of the world climate powerhouse, could be changing, and with it the famous Gulf Stream that brings tropical waters into the North Atlantic.

That too has changed its trajectory in the last 10 years, and is now injecting warmer and saltier water into the Gulf of Maine, to alter the conditions that for most of human history provided food for the whales.

“Right whales continue to die each year,” said Erin Meyer-Gutbrod of the University of South Carolina, who led the study. “Protective policies must be strengthened immediately before this species declines past the point of no return.”

As the seas warm, the Artic ice retreats. The Arctic cod may be on the move, which is bad news not just for fishermen but for the seals and other creatures that depend on a rich energy source to maintain population numbers.

Smaller fish predominating

Canadian scientists report in the journal Ecology Letters that changes in the makeup, size and distribution of fish in Hudson Bay will begin to accelerate after 2025 and become rapidly more extreme unless humans drastically limit fossil fuel combustion.

And that would be bad news for the ringed seal, Phoca hispida: it would be left with a meaner food source. “We found that, by the end of the century, the large fatty Arctic cod may decline dramatically in terms of biomass and distribution.

“Then smaller fish like capelin and sand lance may become much more prevalent”, said Katie Florko, of the University of British Columbia, lead author. Warmer temperatures tend to favour smaller individuals. Arctic cod could shrink by up to 35%; they will also tend to move further north.

“It costs energy to forage. Does that mean the seals will need to spend more energy to get a larger number of these smaller fish for the same amount of energy as capturing a bigger fish?”

Her co-author Travis Tai, of the Pacific Climate Impacts Consortium, said: “We’ve never seen such drastic change so quickly. We’re rolling the dice, and we don’t know exactly what will happen. When we have dramatic shifts in food web structure, we can expect large changes not only to how species such as ringed seals use the oceans, but also how people use the oceans.” − Climate News Network



in Climate News Network

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

U.S. Geological Survey/wikimedia commons
Biodiversity & Habitat

Climate Change Amplifies Risk of ‘Insect Apocalypse’

December 1, 2022
42
Alaa Abd El-Fatah/wikimedia commons
COP Conferences

Rights Abuses, Intrusive Conference App Put Egypt Under Spotlight as COP 27 Host

November 14, 2022
26
Western Arctic National Parklands/wikimedia commons
Arctic & Antarctica

Arctic Wildfires Show Approach of New Climate Feedback Loop

January 2, 2023
27

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

RL0919/wikimedia commons

Danske Bank Quits New Fossil Fuel Financing

January 23, 2023
2.1k
@tongbingxue/Twitter

Extreme Warming Ahead Even as Worst-Case Scenarios Grow ‘Obsolete’

January 23, 2023
271
Rachel Notley/Facebook

Notley Scorches Federal Just Transition Bill as Fossil CEO Calls for Oilsands Boom

January 23, 2023
257
United Nations

Salvage of $20B ‘Floating Time Bomb’ Delayed by Rising Cost of Oil Tankers

January 27, 2023
18
James Vincent Wardhaugh/flickr

Canada Sidelines Ontario’s Ring of Fire, Approves Separate Mining Project

December 4, 2022
379
Weirton, WV by Jon Dawson/flickr

IRON OXIDE: New Battery Brings Long-Duration Storage to Grids, 750 Jobs to West Virginia

January 23, 2023
493

Recent Posts

EcoAnalytics

Albertans Want a Just Transition, Despite Premier’s Grumbling

January 23, 2023
188
Sergio Boscaino/flickr

Dubai Mulls Quitting C40 Cities Over ‘Costly’ Climate Target

January 24, 2023
85
hangela/pixabay

New UK Coal Mine Faces Two Legal Challenges

January 24, 2023
43

Gas Stoves Enter U.S. Climate Culture War, Become ‘Bellwether’ for Industry

January 22, 2023
73
Jeff Hitchcock/flickr.

BREAKING: GFANZ Banks, Investors Pour Hundreds of Billions into Fossil Fuels

January 23, 2023
495

Exxon Had the Right Global Warming Numbers Through Decades of Denial: Study

January 17, 2023
223
Next Post

Smoke from wildfires kills thousands annually

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}