Aquatic Environment and Biodiversity Annual Review 2012

AEBAR 2012: Marine Biodiversity
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is preparing material for the 5 th IPCC Report
in 2014 and for the first time includes chapters to explicitly address ocean climate change issues 31 .
The Working Group I and Working Group II Contributions to the Fifth Assessment Report include
chapters on the ocean (WG I) and Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability
including Chapters on Coastal and Oceans ecosystems, and sections on biodiversity(WGII). Working
Group I will consider "Ocean biogeochemical changes, including ocean acidification" in their Chapter
3 (Observations - Ocean), and "Processes and understanding of changes, including ocean
acidification" in their Chapter 6 on "Carbon and other biogeochemical cycles". Working Group II will
consider "Water property changes, including temperature and ocean acidification" in their Chapter 6
on "Ocean Systems". In addition, "Carbon Cycle including Ocean Acidification" has been identified
as a "Cross-Cutting Theme" across (predominantly) WG1 and WG2.
Hobday et al. (2006) reported on the relative risks and likely impacts of ocean climate change and
ocean acidification to marine life in Australian waters (Figure 11.1). This approach was extremely
useful for summarising risks and threats of climate change on marine systems to policy makers and
the subsequent development of the Commonwealth Environment Research Facilities (CERF) Marine
Biodiversity Hub in Australia 32.
The Hub analysed patterns and dynamics of marine biodiversity through four research programmes to
determine the appropriate units and models for effectively predicting Australia’s marine biodiversity.
These programmes were designed to develop and deliver tools needed to manage Australia’s marine
biodiversity in a changing ocean climate. The final report from three years intense research is
available at the website 33. Australia also has The Marine Adaptation Network that comprises a
framework of five connecting marine themes (integration; biodiversity and resources; communities;
markets and policy) that cut across climate change risk, marine biodiversity and resources, socioeconomics,
policy and governance, and includes ecosystems and species from the tropics to
Australian Antarctic waters 34 .
In late June 2011, two science-based reports heightened concerns about the critical state of the
world’s oceans in response to ocean climate change. One focuses on the potential impacts of ocean
acidification on fisheries and higher trophic level ecology and takes a modelling approach to scaling
from physiology to ecology (Le Quesne and Pinnegar 2011) and the other assesses the critical state of
the world’s oceans in relation to climate change and other stressors (Rogers and Laffoley (2011).
11.2.1. Census of Marine Life 2000–2010
In 2010, the international initiative to conduct a Census of Marine Life 35 was concluded after ten
years of accessing and databasing existing records, sampling and exploration around the globe. The
Census is an unprecedented collaboration among researchers from more than 80 nations to assess and
explain the diversity, distribution, and abundance of life in the oceans. During the last decade, the
2,700 scientists involved in the Census have mounted 540 expeditions, identified more than 6,000
potentially new species, catalogued upward of 31 million distribution records, and generated 2,600
scientific publications. NIWA scientists were part of the team that led CenSeam 36 , the seamount
component of the Census of Marine Life, and scientists from NIWA and the University of Auckland
played significant roles in a number of other programmes.The New Zealand IPY-CAML voyage to
the Ross Sea in 2008 was a major contribution to CAML.
31 http://www.global-greenhouse-warming.com/IPCC-5th-Report.html
32 www.marinehub.org/
33 www.marinehub.org/
34 arnmbr.org/content/index.php/site/aboutus/
35 www.coml.org/results-publications
36 www.coml.org/global-census-marine-life-seamounts-censeam
239