Climate Change: Warming Arctic May Cause Massive Changes in Ocean Ecosystem

Climate change may be mixing up life in the Arctic with warm water. Scientists have found that even a short-term influx of warm water into the Arctic Ocean would suffice to fundamentally impact the local symbiotic communities.

The Arctic is a remote and extreme habitat. Despite its isolate, though, climate change will dramatically transform the region in years to come. Sea ice cover in the area is shrinking, and the world's oceans are gradually warming. However, it's unclear exactly how polar marine organisms are responding.

That's why scientists have now used a set of long-term observations to show that arctic marine habitats could radically change if subjected to a sustained rise in temperature.

In order to investigate the changes in the ecosystems of arctic waters, for the past 15 years the researchers have operated a deep-sea observatory, called "HAUSGARTEN," in the Fram Strait, which is the sea lane between Greenland and Svalbard. HAUSGARTEN is a network of 21 individual research stations and record the water temperature and tides, and collect soil and water samples at regular intervals.

The researchers found that from 2005 to 2008, the average temperature of the inflowing water was one to two degrees higher. In that time, large quantities of warmer water poured into the Arctic Ocean. During the same time, there were major ecosystem changes.

"We were able to identify serious changes in various symbiotic communities, from microorganisms and algae to zooplankton," said Thomas Soltwedel, one of the researchers, in a news release. "One major change was the increase in free-swimming conchs and amphipods, which are normally found in the more temperate and subpolar regions of the Atlantic. In contrast, the number of conchs and amphipods in the Arctic dropped significantly."

The scientists also found a decline in small, hard-shelled diatoms. These changes, in particular, highlight how much warmer temperatures can change the Arctic ecosystem.

The findings are published in the journal Ecological Indicators.

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