A new study carried out by a team of French researchers from the Villefranche-sur-Mer oceanography laboratory suggests that rising water temperatures and acidification is a big threat to acquatic life in the Mediterranean Sea.
The team recorded Mediterranean surface water temperatures on a weekly basis. Researchers used their boats from the southern French town of Villefranche-sur-Mer several hundred yards out to take water samples at different depths. They found that the temperatures increased by 0.7 degree between 2007 and 2015. The study also revealed that water’s acidity has increased by nearly 7 percent during the same period. These rates are much higher than any ocean in the world, according to researchers, who state that their findings apply to an area that includes Italy, France and Spain.
Although Mediterranean Sea is a separate body of water, it is sometimes considered a part of the Atlantic Ocean. Its area is about 2.5 million square km, and is surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and connected to the Atlantic Ocean. Mediterranean Sea is almost completely enclosed by land—bordered on the east by Asia, in the north by Europe, and in south by Africa. Its name is derived from the Latin word mediterraneus which means “inland” or “in the middle of land.” The Strait of Gibraltar connects Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean. The average depth of Mediterranean Sea is about 4,900 feet, while the deepest recorded point is 17,280 feet. The countries with coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea are Egypt, Israel, Libya, Malta, Slovenia, Albania, France, Algeria, Greece, Lebanon, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Italy, Cyprus, Morocco, Spain, Monaco, Syria, Tunisia, Montenegro, and Turkey.
According to National Scientific Research Centre (CNRS) director of research, Jean-Pierre Gattuso, human activities, in the form of CO2 emissions, are responsible for increasing acidification and warming up of the water in Mediterranean Sea. He states the oceans absorb about one-fourth of CO2 emissions by humans and make water more acidic. According to Guttuso, these factors have already changed the ecology of the ocean.
“There are species that come from the southern coasts of the Mediterranean, so we end up seeing a Mediterranean that is becoming almost subtropical,” he said.
He added that planktons migrate towards north to maintain an optimum temperature, but they can’t do so in the Mediterranean as it is connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the narrow Strait of Gibraltar.
“It’s a dead-end here, so species could disappear,” Gattuso said.
Mediterranean tapeweed (Posidonia oceanica seagrass) which produces oxygen is especially at threat.
According to Gattuso, acidification would be a serious problem in coming years for marine organisms having skeleton or a calcium shell.
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