So, it's looking likely that our fish portions will shrink in the future. Richard explains, ‘We have measured the sizes of fossils to test this prediction and in almost all cases marine animals became smaller as temperatures rose in the past. Smaller fish will have knock-on effects up the food chain, and result in smaller predators too, like sharks. They won't be affected in the same way, but everything else will. Other animals breathe air, like whales and turtles, so they get their oxygen from the atmosphere. Any animal with gills will suffer, including fish, oysters, octopus and crabs.
Some animals will get smaller as their watery home gets hotter and oxygen disappears. Pollution will only add to the devastation unless we stop it. These are areas of the ocean where the water quality is too poor to sustain life. When the oxygen levels go down, dead zones will expand. Anyone who owns a fish tank knows you need air bubbling through it because the fish inside will use up the oxygen.' 'Warm water holds less oxygen, which is a big problem for marine animals. The rocks and fossils show us that as temperature increased in the past, oxygen levels fell and huge areas of the seafloor became uninhabitable. It has happened to Earth many times before, and here in the Museum we have collections of fossil animals and plants that date back millions of years, so we can see how they responded. Research leader Prof Richard Twitchett says, 'We have a really good idea of what oceans look like when the climate warms. Museum scientists study these past periods of climate change so they can predict what will happen to ocean animals in the future. The water will be warmer and it will hold less oxygenĮven if we stopped all fishing and tackled plastic pollution, life underwater would still be struggling to deal with climate change.Įarth's oceans have been around for billions of years, and they've gone through periods of warming and cooling before.
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