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Description

  • Increases in regional sea temperatures have triggered a major northwards expansion of warmer water plankton and a northwards retreat of colder water plankton in the North-east Atlantic. This northerly movement has amounted to about 10 ° latitude (1 100 km) over the past 40 years, and it seems to have accelerated since 2000.
  • Sub-tropical species are occurring with increasing frequency in Europe’s seas, and sub-Arctic species are receding northwards.
  • Wild fish stocks are responding to changing temperatures and food supply by changing their distribution. This can have impacts on those local communities that depend on those fish stocks.
  • Further changes in the distribution of marine species, including fish stocks, are expected with the projected climate change, but quantitative projections of these distribution changes are not widely available.

Reference information

Websites:
https://www.eea.europa.eu/ds_resolveuid/IND-102-en
Source:
EEA

Published in Climate-ADAPT: Jun 7, 2016

Date of publication:

2017

Keywords:
CLIM015, North Sea, Northward movement, fish, plankton, sea temperature
Climate impacts:

Extreme Temperatures

Adaptation Approaches:

Observations and Scenarios, Adaptation Plans and Strategies, Climate services

Sectors:

Biodiversity protection, Marine and Fisheries

Geographic characterisation:

Global

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This translation is generated by eTranslation, a machine translation tool provided by the European Commission.