How does rising atmospheric CO2 affect marine organisms?

Click to locate material archived on our website by topic


Svalbard, Norway
Reference
Berge, J., Johnsen, G., Nilsen, F., Gulliksen, B. and Slagstad, D. 2005. Ocean temperature oscillations enable reappearance of blue mussels Mytilus edulis in Svalbard after a 1000 year absence. Marine Ecology Progress Series 303: 167-175.

Description
A thermophilous mollusk community was detected in 2004 along the west coast of Svalbard (78°13'N, 14°E) that is believed to have been initiated by larvae transported "in unusually warm water" from the mainland of Norway during the summer of 2002, after a 1000-year absence from where the mussels were "abundant" during "warm intervals in the Holocene." The authors say the reappearance "suggests that recent water temperatures approach [our italics] those of the mediaeval warm period," which implies that it is not yet as warm at that high northern latitude as it was during the Medieval Warm Period (~AD 800-1200).