PML scientists contribute to MCCIP annual report card
29th July 2010
Scientists from the Plymouth Marine Laboratory
(PML) have made a substantial scientific contribution to the Marine
Climate Change Impacts Partnership (MCCIP)’s third Annual Report
Card, which was launched on Thursday 15 July by UK environment
ministers at the British-Irish Council meeting at Newcastle
University’s Dove Marine Laboratory.
The MCCIP is a partnership between scientists, government, its
agencies, non-governmental organisations and industry. Its
principal aim is to provide a coordinating framework for the UK, so
as to be able to transfer high-quality evidence on marine climate
change impacts, and guidance on adaptation and related advice, to
policy advisors and decision makers.
The 2010-2011 MCCIP Annual Report Card provides the very latest
updates on how climate change is affecting our seas. Almost 100
scientists from 40 leading UK science organisations contributed to
this report card, making it our most comprehensive to date. New
topics on air-sea carbon exchanges, deep sea habitats, waterbirds
and human health are introduced, along with a UK regional seas
impact map. This report card also takes a first look at how the
UKCP09 climate projections might aid our understanding of future
marine climate impacts and for the first time covers air-sea
exchanges of CO2, deep-sea habitats, waterbirds and
human health.
New findings in the 2010-2011 MCCIP annual report card
include:
- Temperatures are generally increasing, but
inter-annual variability is high; 2008 UK coastal sea surface
temperatures were lower than the 2003 – 2007 mean.
- Some fish distributions have moved
northwards over the past 30 years by distances ranging from around
50 to 400km, with coldwater species such as monkfish and snake
blenny moving the furthest.
- Climate change has contributed to a
decrease by approximately 9% in the total number of seabirds
breeding in the UK between 2000 and 2008.
- Increasing sea temperatures may have the
potential to increase the geographic range of some harmful algal
bloom species associated with Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning (PSP)
events.
PML scientists which have contributed to the report card include
Helen Findlay, Nick Hardman-Mountford, Emmer Litt, Stephen Mangi,
Tim Smyth and Carol Turley providing input to the sections on sea
temperature, ocean acidification, salinity and air-sea exchanges of
carbon dioxide sections of the report card.
The 12-page summary report card can be accessed at
http://www.mccip.org.uk/arc/2010/pdf.
For more information about the Marine Climate Change Impacts
Partnership and UK Climate Projections (UKCP09), please follow the
following links: http://www.mccip.org.uk