{"id":40090363,"date":"2022-01-19T12:43:22","date_gmt":"2022-01-19T07:13:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/china-dialogue-ocean-staging.darkbluehq.com\/uncategorized\/20227-how-ocean-management-antarctica-integrated-climate-change\/"},"modified":"2022-08-16T14:27:56","modified_gmt":"2022-08-16T13:27:56","slug":"20227-how-ocean-management-antarctica-integrated-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/ocean\/20227-how-ocean-management-antarctica-integrated-climate-change\/","title":{"rendered":"How ocean management in Antarctica has integrated climate change"},"content":{"rendered":"

Climate protection and ocean conservation are getting increasing attention, and the links between the two are being taken more seriously during international processes. At the Glasgow Climate Conference, leaders announced their ocean actions<\/a>, including establishing marine reserves, as climate actions. Some countries have put the \u201cblue economy\u201d and coastal adaptation to climate change into their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to keeping warming within Paris Agreement levels.<\/p>\n

The Glasgow Climate Pact<\/a> marks the first time ocean issues have been formally included in UN climate processes<\/a>. In its own words, the pact \u201cinvites the relevant work programmes and constituted bodies under the UNFCCC [UN Framework Convention on Climate Change] to consider how to integrate and strengthen ocean-based action in their existing mandates and workplans and to report on these activities within the existing reporting processes.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is hardly the first time the link between the climate and the ocean has been recognised. Some ocean management bodies are already considering climate change when setting policy, with the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) a pioneer.<\/p>\n

The climate change threat to marine life in Antarctica<\/h2>\n

CCAMLR, one part of the Antarctic Treaty system, is an international organisation founded in 1982 to steward Antarctica\u2019s marine , mainly by managing fisheries. Specifically, it applies \u201cto the Antarctic marine living resources of the area south of 60\u00b0 South latitude…. and of the area between that latitude and the Antarctic Convergence.”<\/p>\n

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\"CCAMLR
The area regulated by CCAMLR is shaded red. The main fisheries here are Antarctic krill, Antarctic toothfish and Patagonian toothfish. Source: CCAMLR<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

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CCAMLR\u2019s work is carried out in accordance with the 1980 Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources. In Article 2<\/a> of that document, a section on conservation principles includes the \u201cprevention of changes or minimisation of the risk of changes in the marine ecosystem which are not potentially reversible over two or three decades.\u201d That means not just preventing clear cause-and-effect threats, but also potential future threats. And there is no doubt that climate change is one of the major threats faced by Antarctic ecosystems.<\/p>\n

Climate change could cause changes in the size of individual creatures, overall biomass (through changes in population size, spawning rates and disease); and distribution (as species shift to waters with more suitable temperatures, or are forced to move due to shifting competitors or predators).<\/p>\n

These impacts aren\u2019t yet significant in the Antarctic\u2019s two main fisheries \u2013 krill and toothfish. But research shows they will worsen as climate change intensifies.<\/p>\n

In 2013, scientists from the Australian Antarctic Division, working in the laboratory to study krill breeding during ocean acidification, found<\/a> that when carbon dioxide in the water reaches 1750\u03bcatm, more than four times normal levels, krill breeding plummets. The researchers predict that, under a business-as-usual scenario, by 2100 krill hatch rates will have dropped 20%. That will affect population sizes.<\/p>\n