Time To Monitor Changing Oceans, Scientists Argue

Scientists need to build long-term networks to observe marine ecosystems as they undergo increasing effects from climate change, a team of scientists will argue in a review of recent research due for publication in December.
Every marine ecosystem has already been affected, according to "Climate Change Impacts on Marine Ecosystems," a review headed by Scott C. Doney of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.
Species population and diversity have shifted, particularly in the tropics and at the poles.
"Aggregated effects may modify energy and material flows as well as biogeochemical cycles, eventually impacting the overall ecosystem functioning and services upon which people and societies depend."
A draft of the paper was released this week at annualreviews.org. It suggests that current scientific resources are inadequate to track pending changes in the world's oceans:
The current state of knowledge highlights the need for a more comprehensive, multispecies approach to ecosystem-level analyses in order to better track and forecast changing marine ecosystems. Research needs span laboratory and field process studies, manipulative experiments, observational networks, historical data synthesis, and modeling from small-scale process simulations to large-scale coupled biophysical models. Especially important is the establishment of long-term, biologically oriented, and ecosystem-based observational systems. These sustained networks are essential for detecting and attributing ecological changes in response to rising CO2 , climate change, and other human pressures. Research should also feed into improving ecological forecasting capabilities to support climate adaptation strategies and policy decisions.
The scientists describe the California Current as another particularly susceptible to effects from climate change. Changes in species population and density are underway, and they are complicated by other human pressures, including overfishing, aquaculture, runoff pollution, habitat degradation, and the introduction of invasive species.
"These factors interact in complex and sometimes synergistic ways such that these multiple stressors on marine ecosystems—both CO2 and non-CO2 related—must be considered in total, not as independent issues."