April 2, 2014 — Historians say the Chesapeake Bay has changed since Capt. John Smith first landed at Jamestown four centuries ago. And scientists say it will change again by the end of this one as a rising, warming ocean with more acidic waters carves out a different estuary and disrupts the huge diversity of marine life that depends on it.
"It will be quite a bit different," said Robert Latour, fisheries scientist at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science in Gloucester Point. "I imagine the coastline will be a little bit different — some projections put the Florida Keys underwater in 100 years, and we're pretty low-lying. In the fish populations, there will be winners and losers."
The bay is a vital space for numerous spawning species, a nursery for others and an important migratory route for countless more. Latour suspects native oysters, already decimated by overfishing and disease, could be hard-hit. And iconic blue crabs, once plentiful, could become scarce.
"We're starting to see blue crabs moving north in areas that we hadn't historically associated with them," Latour said. "So there's been a general shift in fishes, too."
But the bay is just one example, scientists say, of how a warming Earth will have real impacts at the local level. And it illustrates the message behind a new report issued this week by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The report builds on earlier ones with more sophisticated and comprehensive science, and identifies the populations and places at risk: everyone, everywhere.
"The report concludes that people, societies and ecosystems are vulnerable around the world," Chris Field, co-chairman of the working group behind the study, said in a statement. "But with different vulnerability in different places."
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