Climate Change and Biodiversity by Jannica Haldin

Slide 1:Climate Change and the Baltic SeaSlide 2:HELCOM and Climate ChangeThe ultimate aim of HELCOM work on climate change has been identified as increasing the resilience of the system of the Baltic Sea with regards to climate change impacts.Expanding HELCOMs function as a regional platform for policy-science dialogue to climate change.Long-term, multi-disciplinary approach to understanding and communicating the implications of climate change for the marine and coastal environment.Slide 3:Joint HELCOM/Baltic Earth Expert Network on Climate Change (EN CLIME)Baltic EarthLong standing established focal point for technical marine climate change information and expertiseHELCOMProven track record for addressing issues of regional concern and for delivering high quality products with a regional policy level impactedEN CLIMEEstablished in 2018110+ expertsAll Baltic Sea statesCoordinating framework and a platform to harness and share expertise.Reduce lag time in transferring quality assured science to the policy level to support decision makingCloser dialogue between climate scientists and policy makersEst. 2018Slide 4:HELCOM Climate Change Fact Sheet (CCFS)34 parameters, identified based on ecological and policy/management relevance.Science-driven exercise synthesizing already existing detailed, peer reviewed information.A consensus view by the regions climate experts.Presents both direct effects and indirect impact.First in a successive series.Slide 8:HELCOM Climate Change Fact SheetKey messages on:What is already happening?What is expected to happen?Other drivers of changeKnowledge gapsPolicy relevanceSlide 9:HELCOM Climate Change Fact SheetThe level of confidence is indicated for each statement, using the precautionary principle.All statements have gone through a second stage peer-review.Supporting, in depth, material available as separate publications, clearly referenced.Slide 10:Climate Change and the Baltic SeaClimate change impacts are evident in the Baltic Sea. These affects the nature of the sea, its ecosystems as well as the human activities depending on it and ecosystem services provided.Direct effect examples:water temperature is rising .ice extent has decreased.annual mean precipitation has increased over the northern part of the region.Indirect impact examples:many wintering birds have shifted their wintering range northwards,numbers of warm water fish species, such as sticklebacks, are increasing,the risk of infection of human-pathogenic Vibrio spp. has increased through surface water warming,trawl fishing now begins earlier in the year.However, the Baltic Sea is facing a complex system of effects and feedbacks between climatic and non-climatic factors.Multiple environmental pressures affect the ecosystem, and climate change adds further cumulative pressures to the existing anthropogenic ones.Climate change effects are not straightforward to understand and are difficult to distinguish from other human pressures.Climate and other human-induced pressures vary significantly between different regions in the Baltic Sea, making it impossible to find simple management solutions that work everywhere.Slide 11:State of Baltic Sea BiodiversitySlide 12:Climate Change and Biodiversity in the BalticWe are already seeing changes to the distribution and behaviour of species as a result of climate change.The Fact Sheet covers:Benthic habitatsOpen sea fishCoastal and migratory fishWaterbirdsSealsSlide 13:Climate Change and Ecosystem Function in the BalticWhat is already happening?Climate-related factors structure Baltic Sea food webs both through top-down (predation) and bottom-up (biomass production) processes that are fundamental for ecosystem functioning.Climate change will likely impact several processes related to food-web interactions, nutrient recycling and ecosystem properties.Long-term eutrophication has increased primary production and during the last decades more frequent algal blooms are observed during warmer years. This causes increased decomposition and oxygen-depleted bottom sediments. Changes in ice-cover, cloudiness, and wind condition in spring may have resulted in changed timing of algal blooms, affecting benthic productivity.Changes in hydroclimatic conditions, in combination with fishing and eutrophication, have resulted in a shift from larger to smaller zooplankton, stronger impact of nutrients on ecosystem structure (bottom-up control) and reduced the regulatory capacity of predators on ecosystem structure (top-down control) in both pelagic and coastal Baltic Sea food webs.What can we expect?Warmer water may increase primary production. Unless nutrient loads are reduced, oxygen levels in the water and close to the seabed will decrease. Responses at higher trophic levels will differ among organism groups.If salinity decreases, this will likely affect the species composition of zooplankton and fish, and the associated functions, e.g. predation rates.If inflow of dissolved organic matter increases this may increase benthic production, and increased bacterial production over phytoplankton production. Reduced light conditions may reduce total primary production of benthic and pelagic food-webs.Slide 14:Climate Change and Eutrophication in the BalticWhat is already happening?Climate change impacts on nutrients could not be separated from other pressures yet. Effects of warming and sea level rise are masked by changes in nutrient loads and bottom water oxygen levels.Eutrophication has made shallow areas with restricted water exchange more prone to hypoxic events. Nutrients liberated from sediments during the hypoxic events fuel summer phytoplankton blooms. Changes in stratification and cloud cover currently prolong the phytoplankton growth season, with earlier spring onset and extended autumn blooms.What can be expected in the future?The development of nutrient loads will dominate future nutrient concentrations, with warming expected to reduce near-bottom oxygen by increasing internal nutrient cycling and by strengthening thermal stratification.When climate change effects are taken into account, current load scenarios project a 25% decline in the Baltic dissolved inorganic phosphorus (DIP) pool until 2070-2100.DIP surface concentrations in the Baltic Proper will slightly increase with current loads while surface dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) concentrations remain unchanged.In the Gulf of Finland and Bothnian Sea, it is expected that DIN levels will increase and DIP changes will be similar to the Baltic Proper.Without load reductions, nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteria blooms are expected to expand.BUT:Future nutrient loads will affect nutrient concentrations more than climate change.Under BSAP: 50% decline in DIP and decrease in surface concentrations of DIP in the Baltic Proper, Gulf of Finland and Bothnian Sea is projected.Slide 15:Climate Change and Human Activities in the BalticWe use the sea in many ways: for fish and shellfish harvesting, aquaculture, for tourism and recreation, as transportation routes and as a space for energy production.This is reflected in the Climate Change Fact Sheets (CCFS) where climate change effects are presented for:ShippingTourismFisheriesAquacultureWindpowerSlide 16:Climate Change and International PolicyStrong links between both the direct and the indirect parameters included in the Fact sheet and international policies, both in the Baltic and globally.In order to mitigate the negative effects of both climate change and other anthropogenic pressures, policymakers need to be aware of the differences and main drivers behind negative impact and utilise an adaptive management approach based on the best available science.Use of climate change information to review and adapt policies under a changing climate:Indicators, measures and goals can be mapped against both direct and indirect parameters.Insufficient to look at effects and impacts for a given topic independently, might be misleading and result in inefficient actions.Parameters with a clear influence on the indicator, measure or goal in questions can then be clustered, creating a structured overview for that topic.This overview shows which direct effects and indirect impacts resulting from climate change are influencing a given indicator, measure or goal, as well as how these parameters are expected to change over time.Identifying which parameters are of influences and what the expected effects are allows for a more targeted and precise deduction process of expected impacts. Once this is in place, identifying which policies and measures need to be reviewed and possibly revised, and in what way, is greatly facilitated.Slide 17:Climate Change and the updated BSAPTargeted section under horizontal segment.Incorporated into each of the other segments using the climate change fact sheet.An increasingly more important aspects for implementation and follow-up.Will be incorporated in future assessments (e.g. HOLAS III).Intended to be used to review policies in the light of climate adaptation under HELCOM.Slide 18:Thank you for your attention!