What if you woke up every day to find that the closest grocery store had moved several miles farther away from your home? Over time, you would have to travel hundreds of extra miles to find essential food for yourself and your family. This is potentially a scenario¹ faced by thousands of marine² animals affected³ by climate change. A new study published in Nature Climate Change examines the distribution of various open ocean animals in the North Pacific and explores how that could change over the next century as global ocean temperatures increase and productivity levels shift. The researchers conclude that some critical ocean habitats could undergo significant changes in location, moving more than 600 miles from where they are now, while other habitats could remain relatively⁴ unchanged.

 

Among large animals, loggerhead turtles, some sharks and blue whales may face the harshest impacts of climate change while some seabirds may actually benefit. Not only are species at risk, but also coastal⁵ communities and industries could feel the impact since top predator⁶（捕食者） habitat shifts can result in the displacement⁷ of fisheries and ecotourism（生态旅游）, such as whale watching.

 

"For species already stressed by overfishing or other human impacts, increased migration⁸ time and loss of habitat could be a heavy blow," said Elliott Hazen, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric⁹ Administration researcher on the project who is affiliated¹⁰ with the Center for Ocean Solutions at Stanford. "But if we can build some plausible¹¹（貌似可信的） scenarios¹² of how marine ecosystems¹³ may change, this may help efforts to prioritize and proactively manage them."

 

In order to carry out their study, the authors employed complex mathematical models with data from the decade-long "Tagging of Pacific Predators¹⁴" (TOPP) project, in which 4,300 electronic tags placed on 23 species from 2000 to 2009 created unprecedented¹⁵ insight into migration patterns and hotspots of predator species in the northern Pacific.

 

Satellite measurements of sea surface temperature and chlorophyll-a (used to estimate surface productivity) were combined with the tracking data to identify "key habitat areas" for a variety of different ocean predators. The researchers then used climate models of ocean temperature and productivity to ascertain¹⁶ how those key habitat areas might change in the face of ocean warming.

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