Marine Ecosystem Responses to Cenozoic Global Change
The future impacts of anthropogenic global change on marine ecosystems are highly uncertain, but insights can be gained from past intervals of high atmospheric carbon dioxide partial pressure. The long-term geological record reveals an early Cenozoic warm climate that supported smaller polar ecosyst...
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Published in | Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Vol. 341; no. 6145; pp. 492 - 498 |
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Main Authors | , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
United States
American Association for the Advancement of Science
02.08.2013
The American Association for the Advancement of Science |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | The future impacts of anthropogenic global change on marine ecosystems are highly uncertain, but insights can be gained from past intervals of high atmospheric carbon dioxide partial pressure. The long-term geological record reveals an early Cenozoic warm climate that supported smaller polar ecosystems, few coral-algal reefs, expanded shallow-water platforms, longer food chains with less energy for top predators, and a less oxygenated ocean than today. The closest analogs for our likely future are climate transients, 10,000 to 200,000 years in duration, that occurred during the long early Cenozoic interval of elevated warmth. Although the future ocean will begin to resemble the past greenhouse world, it will retain elements of the present "icehouse" world long into the future. Changing temperatures and ocean acidification, together with rising sea level and shifts in ocean productivity, will keep marine ecosystems in a state of continuous change for 100,000 years. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-2 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-3 content type line 23 ObjectType-Review-1 ObjectType-Article-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 |
ISSN: | 0036-8075 1095-9203 |
DOI: | 10.1126/science.1240543 |