Recent research conducted by Dr. Curtis Deutsch and Postdoctoral Research Associate Justin Penn reveal a bleak impending future for ocean biodiversity. Their research, which synthesizes projections of climate change and physiological data of marine species to predict how creatures will be affected by anthropogenic habitat change, reveals that extinctions from modern emissions have the potential to rival the severity of historic mass extinctions under high-emission scenarios. Marine species are at such high levels of risk due to the synergistic effects of increasing ocean warming and decreasing levels of oxygen, both factors that are being driven by anthropogenic carbon emissions. As water warms, its capacity to hold oxygen decreases, and simultaneously, organisms will require more oxygen, as warmer temperatures lead to higher metabolic rates. These effects put many species at risk, especially those adapted for colder climates which will see their habitable zone decrease substantially.

However, the likelihood of that future depends on our actions today. If, in contrast, humanity limits emissions to 2°C, the severity of extinctions could be reduced by >70%. Currently, there is an opportunity for the disaster to be avoided; climate change is not yet the most impactful stressor to marine organisms, ranking behind overfishing, transportation, urban development, and pollution. Still, its effects are already being felt by almost half of all marine species at risk of extinction, and that number will continue to grow if action is not taken soon. Immediate reductions in global emissions must be made or else this mass extinction of our own making may become inevitable.

Deutsch and Penn began this research at the UW with funding from the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, California Sea Grant, California Ocean Protection Council and the UW Program on Climate Change, and are both currently at Princeton University.

Read more at UW News