The research team from the Cyprus Marine and Maritime Institute has invited us to witness the devastating impact of these heatwaves on fragile underwater ecosystems.
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00:00In Cyprus, record-shattering temperatures are scorching both the land and the surrounding
00:07sea.
00:08The research team from the Cyprus Marine and Maritime Institute have invited us to witness
00:12the devastating impact of these heat waves on fragile underwater ecosystems.
00:23Warm seas feel great on a holiday, but for marine life, they can be devastating.
00:28As ocean temperatures spike for longer and longer periods, how severe is the threat to
00:33underwater ecosystems?
00:35And can we do anything to prevent the worst?
00:38Let's dive in to find out.
00:45The water here is bathtub warm.
00:48The visibility is not that good today, normally it's crystal clear.
00:55What's obvious here is that the area is in trouble.
00:58Last year, this was a lush green gas meadow, a haven for sea turtles and stingrays, now
01:02it's a lifeless expanse littered with the remains of once thriving sponges.
01:11We are a hotspot of rising temperatures, both outside the water, but also inside the water.
01:19And these increasing temperatures, which are becoming more intense, more prolonged and
01:24more high, they are obviously affecting organisms.
01:27The worst that can happen to them is death, they die.
01:32As native life struggles with rising heat, alien species from the nearby Red Sea are
01:36migrating in, further disrupting the ecosystem.
01:40Now with increasing temperatures, we have a lot more new species that manage to pass
01:46through the Suez Channel in some way, and they find favorable conditions to thrive.
01:52And in many cases, these new species, they out-compete native species, they displace
01:58them, and they cause a multitude of problems.
02:04For over a decade, Cyprus researchers have closely tracked rising marine temperatures
02:08with special underwater sensors.
02:10We are now approaching the spot where we have our data loader deployed.
02:20Recordings show that Cyprus' waters are warming year-round, especially in the shadows where
02:24life depends on delicate coral reefs.
02:27The team photographs the coral to document changes over time.
02:31Here you can see, these are polyps that have deteriorated, they look completely dead.
02:41This is dead.
02:45The MMI team is part of two European-funded research projects, Purify and Effective, studying
02:51the impact of marine heatwaves on shallow reefs and seeking nature-based solutions to
02:56protect and restore seabed ecosystems before they are lost forever.
03:01We will try to collect some sediments, of course.
03:05By taking coral samples of either the sediment or the actual reefs, you can understand how
03:11the climate was in the past, from the very bottom of the sample, and then you go all
03:17the way up to the core sample to understand how it changes through the years, all the
03:21way up to today.
03:25Sediment analysis reveals how heatwaves affect population levels and other variables.
03:30Another thing that we do investigate in sediment is the meiophona.
03:35Meiophona is a small organism, and their biodiversity is really dependent on the temperature, nutrient
03:41and other conditions.
03:42Many species could even go extinct because the water is too hot or the sediment is too
03:47hot or the nutrients have changed because of climate change and heatwaves.
03:53The crisis in Cyprus' waters is just one example of a global phenomenon closely monitored by
03:57oceanographers at Mercator Ocean International in Toulouse, France.
04:03Dr. Karina von Schickman, a lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
04:08Reports, explains that these intensifying heatwaves are one of the consequences of our
04:12planet's heat imbalance.
04:15Marine heatwaves can occur because there are heatwaves taking place in the atmosphere,
04:20so we have this interaction between the atmosphere and the ocean, and then the ocean is heating
04:24up, the wind is slowing down, etc., favoring these conditions.
04:28We have seen in the last IPCC that it increases in general for the extremes that we have higher
04:34intensities and also the frequency of these extremes is increasing.
04:41Marine heatwaves, prolonged periods of unusually high seawater temperatures, are spreading
04:45like wildfires across oceans worldwide.
04:48They threaten ecosystems, fisheries, aquaculture and tourism, and can last for weeks, months
04:53or even years.
04:59In the Mediterranean, sea surface temperatures have been rising continuously since the 1980s,
05:04a trend expected to continue throughout the 21st century.
05:11To better understand and forecast marine heatwaves, Mercator Ocean has developed advanced computer
05:15models implementing the Copernicus marine service, part of the EU's Copernicus program.
05:21We collect all the observations available, satellites, and what we call in situ, that
05:28is, really made at sea, with autonomous buoys, but also with ships, with all kinds of
05:33measuring instruments.
05:34And from all these observations, we are going to integrate them into a model solution.
05:40We make a forecast for the next 10 days, and that allows us to know if in a week there
05:44will always be a marine heatwave in the same place, or if it will evolve in one direction
05:48or the other.
05:49And we publish bulletins every week to give the current status.
05:54We need to understand what biodiversity is going to be destroyed in the long run, what
06:00is the impact on us, what is going to change on the great balances, and how, above all,
06:05we can avoid continuing this disaster that we have caused on the oceans.
06:10Scientists estimate that 90% of the world's remaining coral reefs could be lost by 2050.
06:16The Balls to Reef Resilience, the team at the CMMI in Cyprus, is experimenting with
06:22coral nurseries.
06:25They place fragments of endangered coral species in a safe area, away from predators.
06:30The goal is for these coral fragments to grow in the protected nursery and later be transplanted
06:34to the seabed, aiding in the regeneration of healthy reef ecosystems.
06:38We follow the team as they lead us to a net platform suspended five meters below the surface.
06:44Here we are at the floating nursery.
06:52It's the first time we're testing these kind of floating nurseries in the Mediterranean
06:56for any species.
06:57We're going to install the corals and we're going to monitor them for at least a year
07:04using photogrammetry and other visual methods.
07:07It remains to be seen how well these coral reefs will fare in the warming sea.
07:13Now it's the peak time of heat waves.
07:17We will continue deploying and installing more coral fragments on the floating nursery
07:22at different seasons to see how they will behave.
07:28We're by now certain that the sea will be different in 10-20 years.
07:34We're making efforts to at least try to save some of the key species that support
07:39the rest of the biodiversity in the hope that the change that will come for sure
07:44will not be so bad or fatal on the marine life.
07:51As the ocean keeps heating up, time is running out for many species facing a future they may not survive.