Josie Taylor | October 14, 2021

Nearly everything in the world will be affected by climate change. New research proves that more every day. People, animals, land and water are all hurting and on the track to hurt more if climate change continues at its current pace.

A study by an international group of researchers shows that interaction between communities of plankton – microorganisms in the ocean– will be affected by climate change in different ways depending on location. Although the effects will be different, they will all be harmful. 

Computer simulations suggested that plankton communities at the poles will be badly damaged by the rise in temperature, while in temperate zones they will suffer from a reduced flow of nutrients and in the tropics from increased salinity. Both effects will lead to harm in the plankton community. Since plankton is a microscopic organism in the ocean, it can be hard to see how this is important. However, plankton supply most of the planet’s oxygen. Their harm is everyone’s harm, especially the ocean’s. 

The findings, published in the journal Science Advances, resulted from mathematical modeling based on the largest-ever inventory of marine plankton making it extremely trustworthy and important. Although this study started in 2009, results have been published more recently.