Marine heatwaves 'spreading like wildfires,' warn experts
The research team from the Cyprus Marine and Maritime Institute has invited us to witness the devastating impact of these heatwaves on fragile underwater ecosystems.
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00:00In Cyprus, record-shattering temperatures are scorching both the land and the surrounding
00:07sea.
00:08The research team from the Cyprus Marine and Maritime Institute have invited us to witness
00:12the devastating impact of these heat waves on fragile underwater ecosystems.
00:23Warm seas feel great on a holiday, but for marine life, they can be devastating.
00:28As ocean temperatures spike for longer and longer periods, how severe is the threat to
00:33underwater ecosystems?
00:35And can we do anything to prevent the worst?
00:38Let's dive in to find out.
00:45The water here is bathtub warm.
00:48The visibility is not that good today, normally it's crystal clear.
00:55What's obvious here is that the area is in trouble.
00:58Last year, this was a lush green gas meadow, a haven for sea turtles and stingrays, now
01:02it's a lifeless expanse littered with the remains of once thriving sponges.
01:11We are a hotspot of rising temperatures, both outside the water, but also inside the water.
01:19And these increasing temperatures, which are becoming more intense, more prolonged and
01:24more high, they are obviously affecting organisms.
01:27The worst that can happen to them is death, they die.
01:32As native life struggles with rising heat, alien species from the nearby Red Sea are
01:36migrating in, further disrupting the ecosystem.
01:40Now with increasing temperatures, we have a lot more new species that manage to pass
01:46through the Suez Channel in some way, and they find favorable conditions to thrive.
01:52And in many cases, these new species, they out-compete native species, they displace
01:58them, and they cause a multitude of problems.
02:04For over a decade, Cyprus researchers have closely tracked rising marine temperatures
02:08with special underwater sensors.
02:10We are now approaching the spot where we have our data loader deployed.
02:20Recordings show that Cyprus' waters are warming year-round, especially in the shadows where
02:24life depends on delicate coral reefs.
02:27The team photographs the coral to document changes over time.
02:31Here you can see, these are polyps that have deteriorated, they look completely dead.
02:41This is dead.
02:45The MMI team is part of two European-funded research projects, Purify and Effective, studying
02:51the impact of marine heatwaves on shallow reefs and seeking nature-based solutions to
02:56protect and restore seabed ecosystems before they are lost forever.
03:01We will try to collect some sediments, of course.
03:05By taking coral samples of either the sediment or the actual reefs, you can understand how
03:11the climate was in the past, from the very bottom of the sample, and then you go all
03:17the way up to the core sample to understand how it changes through the years, all the
03:21way up to today.
03:25Sediment analysis reveals how heatwaves affect population levels and other variables.
03:30Another thing that we do investigate in sediment is the meiophona.
03:35Meiophona is a small organism, and their biodiversity is really dependent on the temperature, nutrient
03:41and other conditions.
03:42Many species could even go extinct because the water is too hot or the sediment is too
03:47hot or the nutrients have changed because of climate change and heatwaves.
03:53The crisis in Cyprus' waters is just one example of a global phenomenon closely monitored by
03:57oceanographers at Mercator Ocean International in Toulouse, France.
04:03Dr. Karina von Schickman, a lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
04:08Reports, explains that these intensifying heatwaves are one of the consequences of our
04:12planet's heat imbalance.
04:15Marine heatwaves can occur because there are heatwaves taking place in the atmosphere,
04:20so we have this interaction between the atmosphere and the ocean, and then the ocean is heating
04:24up, the wind is slowing down, etc., favoring these conditions.
04:28We have seen in the last IPCC that it increases in general for the extremes that we have higher
04:34intensities and also the frequency of these extremes is increasing.
04:41Marine heatwaves, prolonged periods of unusually high seawater temperatures, are spreading
04:45like wildfires across oceans worldwide.
04:48They threaten ecosystems, fisheries, aquaculture and tourism, and can last for weeks, months
04:53or even years.
04:59In the Mediterranean, sea surface temperatures have been rising continuously since the 1980s,
05:04a trend expected to continue throughout the 21st century.
05:11To better understand and forecast marine heatwaves, Mercator Ocean has developed advanced computer
05:15models implementing the Copernicus marine service, part of the EU's Copernicus program.
05:21We collect all the observations available, satellites, and what we call in situ, that
05:28is, really made at sea, with autonomous buoys, but also with ships, with all kinds of
05:33measuring instruments.
05:34And from all these observations, we are going to integrate them into a model solution.
05:40We make a forecast for the next 10 days, and that allows us to know if in a week there
05:44will always be a marine heatwave in the same place, or if it will evolve in one direction
05:48or the other.
05:49And we publish bulletins every week to give the current status.
05:54We need to understand what biodiversity is going to be destroyed in the long run, what
06:00is the impact on us, what is going to change on the great balances, and how, above all,
06:05we can avoid continuing this disaster that we have caused on the oceans.
06:10Scientists estimate that 90% of the world's remaining coral reefs could be lost by 2050.
06:16The Balls to Reef Resilience, the team at the CMMI in Cyprus, is experimenting with
06:22coral nurseries.
06:25They place fragments of endangered coral species in a safe area, away from predators.
06:30The goal is for these coral fragments to grow in the protected nursery and later be transplanted
06:34to the seabed, aiding in the regeneration of healthy reef ecosystems.
06:38We follow the team as they lead us to a net platform suspended five meters below the surface.
06:44Here we are at the floating nursery.
06:52It's the first time we're testing these kind of floating nurseries in the Mediterranean
06:56for any species.
06:57We're going to install the corals and we're going to monitor them for at least a year
07:04using photogrammetry and other visual methods.
07:07It remains to be seen how well these coral reefs will fare in the warming sea.
07:13Now it's the peak time of heat waves.
07:17We will continue deploying and installing more coral fragments on the floating nursery
07:22at different seasons to see how they will behave.
07:28We're by now certain that the sea will be different in 10-20 years.
07:34We're making efforts to at least try to save some of the key species that support
07:39the rest of the biodiversity in the hope that the change that will come for sure
07:44will not be so bad or fatal on the marine life.
07:51As the ocean keeps heating up, time is running out for many species facing a future they may not survive.