Biodiversity and its threats in the Wadden Sea

This article is part of the 4sea Project

The European Wadden Sea

The European Wadden Sea is located in the North Sea and reaches from Den Helder in the Netherlands, through Germany to Esbjerg in Denmark. There are other parts of the world where tidal regions also exist for example in Mauritania in West Africa and in Georgia Bight in the USA. With the expanse of the European Wadden Sea of 10.000 square meters it is the longest, connected tidal region worldwide [1].

Does heat stress amplify the negative effects of micro plastics on marine benthic filter feeders?

This article is part of the 4sea Project

Since the 1950´s, the worldwide plastic production has continuously increased to a maximum of roughly 288 Mio tons in 2013. Of this vast amount of plastic litter about 4.8 to 12.7 Mio tons enter the oceans annually even though it is a fact that plastic and especially small plastics particles (< 5mm), termed micro plastics pose a serious threat to marine organisms and their ecosystems [1]. These small particles are ubiquitous in the marine environment and can mistakenly be taken up by marine organisms, like bivalve species causing severe negative effects. Micro plastics can lead to tissue inflammation, reduction of filtering activities, the production of pseudofaeces, impact the reproduction, or even cause death [2].

Climate change and fishery: How climate change strongly impact food security in Sub-Saharan-Africa?

This article is part of the 4sea Project

In the whole world, fisheries play an important role providing food supply and being an income generator and nutrition source to millions of people. Indeed, some 43,5 millions of people live directly from the fishery sector. If you add all the fishery associated activities, it is some 200 millions of people (Essam Yassin Mohammed and Zenebe Bashaw Uraguchi, 2013) who live directly from fishery.

Upwelling Zones – Secrets of the deep Ocean

This article is part of the 4sea Project. 

The sinking of water masses forms the “motor” of the thermohaline circulation. Warm saline water masses flow from the equatorial regions to the north, where they cool down, lose volume and sink to the bottom. Along the ocean floor those water masses flow back to the south. However, these water masses must come up at some point to form a circulation and to follow the simple law of physics of mass continuity. The process of these re-emerging water masses is called upwelling.

Cooking Tropical Storms

Increasing sea surface temperature changing precipitation patterns and fuelling extreme weather conditions.

This article is part of the 4sea Project.

When you heat the water for your cup of tea, you take of the lid and you see there are lots of tiny drops under the lid. With the climate change, the same procedure is happening with the sea of our planet and that’s how climate change can change precipitation patterns by increasing sea surface temperatures that creates evaporation and increases the rainfall. And we are not just talking about small scattered showers, but tremendous rainfalls and tropical storms.

The Gulf Stream System – The North Atlantic Ocean circulation and climate change

This article is part of the 4sea Project. 

The thermohaline circulation, thermo referring to heat and haline referring to salt, has an important role for the state of the global climate. The ocean currents, driven by wind systems and density differences in the oceans, transport heat from tropical latitudes near the equator to higher latitudes close to the poles, which stabilises the uneven distribution of solar energy around the globe. This large-scale circulation, consisting of numerous ocean currents, connects all the ocean basins to each other and has therefore a large impact on the global climate system as a whole. In the Northern hemisphere, the Gulf Stream system makes up a large part of the thermohaline circulation, and is one of the most studied ocean current systems in the world because of its big impact on local weather and climate.¹

How real is Emmerich’s The Day After Tomorrow’s Scenario

This article is part of the 4sea Project.

Have you ever wondered how much is actually true about Emmerich’s “The day after tomorrow”-scenario? Can an ice age actually happen with rising temperatures? That sounds pretty paradoxical, right? The most commonly used scenarios in terms of climate change show higher sea level because of increasing temperature and with that, melting glaciers and drowning islands. But there are some other scenarios that resemble Emmerich’s “The Day After Tomorrow” world, admittedly, not quite as dramatic and spectacular as a deep frozen world but there are some similarities.

 

Coastal management in the North Sea

This article is part of the 4sea Project.

Case study of the island of Sylt

Risks in coastal areas are very high due to climate change impacts, and the threats from sea-level rise are numerous, mostly affecting poor and vulnerable countries. The fact that the share of the global population living close to the sea has never been as large as today enhances the general necessity to reaction on the coasts [1].

Sea Level Rise in the Indian Ocean

This article is part of the 4sea Project.

Case study of Bangladesh

Bangladesh, a country of around 164 million people, is situated in the maritime territory of the largest river delta in the world, Ganges-Brahmaputra, at the head of the Bay of Bengal. With nearly two-thirds of the country being less than 5 meters above the sea level, Bangladesh is widely recognized as one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change.¹ As the sea surface temperatures have risen significantly faster in the Bay of Bengal (5 mm yr^-1 and more) than for the global average (3.2 mm yr^-1) for the past decades, Bangladesh has suffered one of the fastest increases of sea level rise in the world.² Along the shoreline of Bangladesh tide-gauge records have reported sea-level rise rates between 6 and 20 mm yr^-1, which highlights the spatial variation of the dynamic coastline of the country.³

Kiribati and the threat of sea level rise

 This article is part of the 4sea Project.

The archipelago of Kiribati, a veritable earthly paradise lost in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, is directly threatened by sea level rise and has thus become the symbol of climate change.