Major reductions in seafloor marine life from climate change by 2100

A new study quantifies for the first time future losses in deep-sea marine life, using advanced climate models. Results show that even the most remote deep-sea ecosystems are not safe from the impacts of climate change.

An international team of scientists predict seafloor dwelling marine life will decline by up to 38 per cent in the North Atlantic and over five per cent globally over the next century. These changes will be driven by a reduction in the plants and animals that live at the surface of the oceans that feed deep-sea communities. As a result, ecosystem services such as fishing will be threatened.

In the study, led by the National Oceanography Centre, the team used the latest suite of climate models to predict changes in food supply throughout the world oceans. They then applied a relationship between food supply and biomass calculated from a huge global database of marine life.

The results of the study are published this week in the scientific journal Global Change Biology.

These changes in seafloor communities are expected despite living on average four kilometres under the surface of the ocean. This is because their food source, the remains of surface ocean marine life that sink to the seafloor, will dwindle because of a decline in nutrient availability. Nutrient supplies will suffer because of climate impacts such as a slowing of the global ocean circulation, as well as increased separation between water masses -- known as 'stratification' -- as a result of warmer and rainier weather.

Lead author Dr Daniel Jones says: "There has been some speculation about climate change impacts on the seafloor, but we wanted to try and make numerical projections for these changes and estimate specifically where they would occur.

"We were expecting some negative changes around the world, but the extent of changes, particularly in the North Atlantic, were staggering. Globally we are talking about losses of marine life weighing more than every person on the planet put together."

The projected changes in marine life are not consistent across the world, but most areas will experience negative change. Over 80 per cent of all identified key habitats -- such as cold-water coral reefs, seamounts and canyons -- will suffer losses in total biomass. The analysis also predicts that animals will get smaller. Smaller animals tend to use energy less efficiently, thereby impacting seabed fisheries and exacerbating the effects of the overall declines in available food.

The study was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) as part of the Marine Environmental Mapping Programme (MAREMAP), and involved researchers from the National Oceanography Centre, the Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada, the University of Tasmania, and the Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, France.

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Major quakes strike in Pacific off Alaska (Reuters)

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – A major earthquake of 7.4 magnitude struck in the Pacific Ocean more than 1,000 miles west of Anchorage on Thursday, prompting a brief tsunami warning for part of the remote Aleutian Islands chain.

No damage or injuries were reported. The warning, which extended for roughly 800 miles -- from Unimak Pass, northeast of Dutch Harbor, westward to Amchitka Pass, west of Adak Island -- was canceled after a little more than an hour.

A tsunami wave measuring just 6 centimeters tall was recorded at Nikolski, a tiny Aleut village on the island of Umnak, and a 10-centimeter wave was observed at Adak, said Becki Legatt, a spokeswoman for the West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer, Alaska.

The coast of the entire Alaska peninsula and all of the Alaska mainland were never considered to be threatened.

The quake struck shortly after 7 p.m. local time at a depth of about 25 miles. A second tremor of magnitude 7.2 hit in the same vicinity of the Aleutians a half-minute later, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

Quakes of 7 to 8 magnitudes and higher are relatively common in the Aleutians but are generally of little consequence because the island chain is so remote and sparsely populated.

"This is a very seismically active area," said Randy Baldwin, a USGS geophysicist with the National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colorado.

A tsunami warning means all coastal residents in the warning area who are near the beach or in low-lying regions should move immediately to higher ground and away from harbors and inlets, including those sheltered directly from the sea.

(Reporting by Yereth Rosen in Anchorage; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Philip Barbara)

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Adrian becomes major hurricane in the Pacific (AP)

MIAMI – Forecasters say Hurricane Adrian has strengthened to a powerful Category 4 storm off the Pacific coast of Mexico but is still expected to stay offshore.

Forecasters say maximum sustained winds for the first hurricane of the 2011 season increased Thursday evening to about 140 mph (225 kph).

The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami predicts that the storm's center will stay well offshore.

The center of the storm was about 320 miles (515 kilometers) south of Manzanillo, Mexico. It is moving west-northwest at 9 mph (14 kph).

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