Global Warming

How does global warming affect sea animals?

Changing Ocean Conditions

As if overfishing and coastal pollution were not destructive enough, global warming posed a potentially lethal threat to many marine species. Rising global temperature affects marine life in many ways both directly and indirectly. The world's oceans now absorb millions of tons global warming gas each year, and thus help to slow the pace of climate change. Global warming increases the rate of "ocean acidification" and is damaging some of the most important living organisms in the sea's food web. As a result there is habitat loss. The loss of habitats results in migration and loss of sea animals. Such migration is seriously affected by the increasing rate of destruction of natural habitats. An increasing occurrence of disease in marine animals is also linked to rising ocean temperatures.

Habbit Loss

Temperature rises are impacting on the entire marine food web. As a result of Global warming there is reduced production of phytoplankton in the world's oceans. Phytoplankton are the microscopic plant life that zooplankton and other marine animals eat, essentially the grain crop of the world's oceans.

For example, phytoplankton, which feeds small crustaceans including krill, grow under sea ice. A reduction in sea ice implies a reduction in krill - and krill feeds many whale species, including the great whales. Some penguin populations, for example, have decreased by 33 percent in parts of Antarctica, because of habitat decline.


Whales and dolphins strand themselves in high temperatures. The great whales also risk losing their feeding grounds, in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica, because of the melting and collapse of ice shelves. In the sea the disappearance of the tiny organisms that the larger creatures feed off of is causing the sea life to migrate northward. Rising temperatures in the oceans put right whales, coral, and other animal life at risk for food shortages and new diseases.

Animals affected
Whole species of marine animals and fish are directly at risk due to the temperature rise - they simply cannot survive in warmer waters. Salmon and other fish are shifting their distribution poleward. Reef fish, crabs, and snails in California provide evidence of this.
Changing ocean conditions and coastal development threaten to outpace the sea turtles' ability to adapt. Found in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans and the Mediterranean Sea, the animals are highly endangered.

Keeping in mind that global warming plays a huge part in our weather and climate, the increased storminess destroys the breeding colonies of the albatross that already battle the possibility of being captured and killed by fishing boats. The rise in sea levels wipe out the nesting sites of the sea turtles, seals and wading birds are also on the list of species to be affected by their habitats being destroyed.

Predators near the top of the food web such as seabirds and marine mammals are greatly affected by the decline in habitat. As a result their is decreased reproduction and an increase of mortality rate.