The study, Marine and Coastal Dimension of Climate Change in Europe: A Report to the European Water Directors, details mounting scientific evidence of temperature-related changes in Europe's waters.
It explains, for instance, how temperature shifts have differed in northern regions from, say, the Mediterranean. Off Scotland, temperatures have risen by a full degree C over the past 20 years - but in the Med, they have increased by just half a degree. Rates of sea level rise have ranged from 0.8mm to 3mm per year.
Effects on marine life have included movement of warmwater species northward, with a corresponding decline in cold-water species. A key change has been a 70 per cent drop in a once-dominant coldwater zooplankton species in northern waters, leading to fundamental changes in fish populations.
Overfishing apart, North Sea cod are said to have been particularly affected by this change.
|
