Europe, Mediterranean at greatest risk from climate change
Pastor Dale Morgan
Europe, Mediterranean at greatest risk from climate change*
By Ariel David, Associated Press Writer
ROME — Climate change is affecting Europe faster than the rest of the
world and rising temperatures could transform the Mediterranean into a
salty and stagnant sea, Italian experts said Wednesday.
Warmer waters and increased salinity could doom many of the sea's plant
and animal species and ravage the fishing industry, warned participants
at a two-day national climate change conference that brought together
some 2,000 scientists and officials in Rome.
"Europe and the Mediterranean are warming up faster than the rest of the
world," said climatologist Filippo Giorgi. "It's a climate change hot
spot, one of the areas where we actually see the change happening."
Scientists still don't know why the region is more sensitive to climate
change, but Giorgi said that in the next decades temperature increases
hitting Europe during the summer months could be 40-50% higher than
elsewhere.
Giorgi said the effects would be similar to those felt during the deadly
summer of 2003, when the extraordinary heat was blamed for the deaths of
tens of thousands of people in Europe and millions of euros in
agricultural losses.
"That was a one-in-a-million freak event, but in the future it will be
the norm for the summer," said Giorgi, who is a top official in the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a U.N. network of 2,000
scientists.
The change is also being felt at sea level, with a surface temperature
increase of 1.08°F every decade, said Vincenzo Ferrara, an Italian
government adviser on climate.
"The Mediterranean is becoming warmer and saltier" due to increased
evaporation, Ferrara told the conference, which was held at the
Rome-based U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.
Ferrara said this could disrupt the flow at the Strait of Gibraltar, a
key gateway to the Mediterranean. The higher salt concentration in the
Mediterranean would cause water to flow out into the Atlantic Ocean, as
opposed to Atlantic water coming into the Mediterranean, which serves as
the sea's lifeline.
Even more worrying, a study conducted by ICRAM, Italy's marine research
institute, indicates the temperature increases are creeping into the
cold depths of the Mediterranean.
Measurements conducted last winter off Italy's western coast at a depth
of up to 300 feet, showed temperatures were about 3.6°F above average.
Temperature differences between the sea's layers create the currents
that allow the Mediterranean's waters to mix and bring up fresh
nutrients to feed the algae that form the basic diet of most fish
species, according to the study.
These temperature rises could wipe out "up to 50% of the species," the
study said. The decline in the algae population measured last winter
also reduced by 30% the sea's ability to absorb carbon dioxide, one of
the gases blamed by scientists for heating the atmosphere like a
greenhouse.