Climate impacts on marine biodiversity by ARC Centre of Excellence in Coral Reef Studies Warming oceans will have a profound impact on marine biodiversity around the world. More acidic oceans keep crustaceans, coral, and other organisms from developing. “Coastal and Marine Ecosystems & Global Climate Change” is the eighth in a series of Pew Center reports examining the potential impacts of climate change on the U.S. environment. Although poorly known, deep seafloor ecosystems provide services that are vitally important to the entire ocean and biosphere. In marine ecosystems, rising atmospheric CO 2 and climate change are associated with concurrent shifts in temperature, circulation, stratification, nutrient input, oxygen content, and ocean acidification, with potentially wide-ranging biological effects. Combined Effects of Climate Change and Other Impacts. Scientists expect the number and range of species, which define biodiversity, will decline greatly as temperatures continue to rise. Impacts from climate change are happening now. In marine ecosystems, rising atmospheric CO2 and climate change are associated with concurrent shifts in temperature, circulation, stratification, nutrient input, oxygen content, and ocean acidification, with potentially wide-ranging biological effects. The National Assessment of Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change (NAST 2001) was based on a series of regional and sector assessments. Finally, we contemplate the challenge of dealing with the confounding effects of multiple impacts (climate change, fishing pressure, pollution), and discuss how we might respond to and mitigate against the effects of climate change. Long-term studies of climate change in the oceans are rare by comparison to those on land . Despite covering 71% of the Earth's surface, our knowledge of the effects of climate change in oceans is limited compared to terrestrial ecosystems. By looking to the past we know that climate-driven phenomena have resulted in large changes to marine ecosystems; dramatic shifts in the abundance of fish off the coast of Peru occurred at the end of the Little Ice Age (LIA) (1). Effects of Climate Change on Marine Life. Warming waters alter the latitude and depth at which certain species are able to survive, so many species are moving deeper or father north in the Atlantic to find cold water. Glaciers have shrunk, ice on rivers and lakes is breaking up earlier, plant and animal ranges have shifted and trees are flowering sooner. One of the most pressing questions of the day is how natural systems will respond to future changes in climate. “Coastal and Marine Ecosystems & Global Climate Change” is the eighth in a series of Pew Center reports examining the potential impacts of climate change on the U.S. environment. A worldwide team of scientists from Australia, UK, USA, Canada, Europe and South Africa, set out to redress this, and recently published their findings in the journal Nature Climate Change. Ocean acidification is impacting marine ecosystems in a number of ways. It details the likely impacts of climate change over the next century on U.S. coastal and marine ecosystems, including estuaries, coral reefs, and the open ocean.