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University of Southampton Study: Climate Change Threatens Endangered Marine Species

Climate and Weather

Sustainable, Endangered, Ecosystem, Potential

Business Honor
23 October, 2024

Global warming threatens whale sharks, pushing them into crowded shipping lanes and increasing ship collision risks.

A new study published in Nature Climate Change reports that global warming may increase the risk faced by threatened whale sharks from large ships. The researchers, from the University of Southampton and the Marine Biological Association (MBA), predict that rising ocean temperatures will force these creatures into new habitats many of which overlap busy shipping lanes.

Under high emission scenarios, it is forecast that co-occurrence of whale sharks with large vessels could increase up to 15,000 times by the end of the century. Dr. Freya Womersley said that these habitat shifts are most significant under high emission scenarios, which result in the loss of core habitats in certain regions, especially in Asia. On the other hand, a sustainable development approach aimed at a global warming of 2°C may have some benefits in core habitats, especially in Europe.

Based on satellite-tracking data and global climate models, potential areas of increased whale shark risk from ship strikes were identified. These were newly produced areas of suitable habitat in locations coinciding with busier shipping lanes, such as those in the North Pacific Ocean and Eastern China seas and the North Atlantic Ocean.

Professor David Sims had pointed out in particular that easing some of these threats of climate change would be helped by managing endangered species, thus the need to consider climate in endangered species management. Apparently, it has been digging deep into the intricacies of interactions between the climate change and human activity in the context of endangered marine life, which calls for proactive measures to prevent changes to the ecosystem.