How does climate change affect our oceans?

Dr Albrecht Götz presents a poster on behalf of SAEON’s Dr Kim Bernard and her research. Dr Juliet Hermes discusses the work the marine nodes of SAEON are doing. Juliet and Albrecht get acquainted with Asturian culture.

Two of SAEON’s dedicated marine scientists, Dr Juliet Hermes and Dr Albrecht Götz recently represented SAEON at the international symposium, ‘Effects of Climate Change on the World’s Oceans’ in Gijon, Spain.

Climate change is the most important threat to the Earth. Even if CO₂ concentrations are stabilised, the 2007 IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) Assessment confirms that warming will continue for decades and sea levels will continue to rise for centuries.

Some direct effects of climate change in the marine environment are already visible, but others need to be defined by enhanced observations, analysis and modelling. We have a rudimentary understanding of the sensitivity and adaptability of natural and managed ecosystems to climate change. An assessment of the consequences of climate change on the world's oceans has a high scientific and social relevance and is urgently needed.

Although the local effects and consequences of climate change on the functioning of marine ecosystems are beginning to be documented, there is no comprehensive vision at the global scale, and only limited ability to forecast the effects of climate change. To close this gap, the Symposium focused on the major issues of climate change that affect the oceans: oceanic circulation, climate modelling, cycling of carbon and other elements, acidification, oligotrophy, changes in species distributions and migratory routes, sea-level rise, coastal erosion, etc.

The Symposium brought together results from observations, analyses and model simulations, at a global scale, and included discussion of the climate change scenarios and the possibilities for mitigating and protecting the marine environment and living marine resources. 

SAEON was well-represented at the symposium. Both Albrecht and Juliet gave presentations on their scientific research. Albrecht also presented a poster on behalf of SAEON’s Dr Kim Bernard and her research, whilst Juliet presented a poster on the SAEON Egagasini and Elwandle nodes and was invited to participate in the workshop “Prospects for multidisciplinary long-term ocean observations”.

Motivated by the need to understand and measure the ocean’s role for climate, the physical community has made great strides towards implementation of global and regional ocean observing systems, both in-situ and space-borne. Despite the introduction, three decades ago, of space-borne sensors for ocean colour, the observing systems for ocean biological and chemical properties are significantly less advanced. The motivation for such systems is strong and growing, given the pressures of marine ecosystems and the ocean’s significance for carbon sources and sinks.

The workshop helped to scope the prospects to allow similar progress concerning observation of biogeochemical properties in the oceans. The outcome of the workshop will feed into a white paper to be presented at OCEANOBS09, to be held in 2009.

The issues addressed in the workshop followed directly from the principles and practices of GEOSS (Global Earth Observation System of Systems). The 10-year Implementation Plan (adopted February 16, 2005) clearly states that GEOSS “...builds on and adds value to existing Earth observation systems by coordinating their efforts, addressing critical gaps, supporting their interoperability, sharing information, reaching a common understanding of user requirements and improving delivery of information to users.” GEO (Group on Earth Observations) includes 68 member countries, the European Commission, and 46 participating organisations working together to establish GEOSS.

SAEON – leading environmental long-term monitoring and data archiving internationally

The symposium presented a great opportunity to introduce SAEON to the international community. It also gave Albrecht and Juliet ample scope to network, which included discussions with a key person in the CLIVAR Indian Ocean panel and the key physical oceanographer in Conservation International, with view to organising a workshop of different disciplines interested in the West Indian Ocean (oceanographers, biologists, conservationalists and policy makers). Discussions were also held with people from South Africa, Germany and America.

A number of other important issues came out of the symposium:

• Ocean Obs will take place in 2009
• There is a need to focus on old literature, as there is a great amount of work that has been done and a lot of data that can be used. Digitising of this data and of the literature is encouraged.
• There is a need at national government level to maintain long-term monitoring and data archiving. This demonstrates that SAEON is really leading the field internationally.

The symposium also provided Juliet and Albrecht the chance to learn more about the relative work being done in each node, as well as learning about some of the more interesting cultural aspects of Asturias, including the Asturians’ rather unusual way of drinking cider!

Juliet and Albrecht received funding from the World Climate Research Program as well as the NRF KIC fund to attend the conference.