Warm seas help in bringing unusual species to UK waters

The UK sailor has achieved its warmer beginnings of this year since the start of the records, which helped lead to some dramatic changes in marine life and its fishing communities.

The average UK water surface in the seven months to the end of July was more than 0.2 ° C for any year since 1980, and the BBC’s temporary office data indicates.

This may not seem much, but the UK’s seas are now much warmer than a few decades ago, the trend led by the burning of human fossil fuels.

This contributes to the main changes in marine ecosystems in the United Kingdom, with some new species entering the seas and others who struggle to overcome heat.

Amateur scientists and natural scientists have noticed a noticeable set of species that are not usually spread in the waters of the United Kingdom, including octopus, blue tuna tuna and dark crows.

The abundance of these creatures can be affected by natural courses and fishing practices, but many researchers refer to the seas of warming as a crucial part of their ascension.

“Things like jellyfish, like Octopus … are the types of things that you expect to respond quickly to climate change,” said Dr. Price Stewart, a great research colleague at the Naval Association in Pleimouth.

“It is somewhat similar to the Canary in the coal mine – the types of unusual changes that we have seen over the past few years, they really indicate an ecosystem under flow,” he added.

Harry Bolkengjhor, a 19 -year -old hunter, described how regularly sees blue tuna, including large schools of fish in feeding feeding tools.

“It is like watching a washing machine in the water,” he said. “You can only see a lot of white water, then tuna and tuna fins that jump.”

Dr. Stewart explained that the blue tuna numbers are built over the past decade in southwestern England for several reasons, including the warmer water and better management of its residents.

Heather Hamilton, who dives off the coast of Cornwall every week with her father, David, caused large flowers of sels, the species that resemble jellyfish.

They are rare in the United Kingdom, but Hamiltons has seen more and more of these creatures in the past two years.

She said, “You see these big chains slightly glow like fictional lights.”

“I felt out of this world, which is something that I have never seen before.”

But the intense heat, along with historical overfishing, pushes some species that are adapted in the United Kingdom such as COD and Wolf-Fish to its borders.

“We definitely see this shift in the cooler water that moves north in general,” said Dr. Stewart.

The sea heat wave conditions – long periods of sea surface temperatures were unusually high – are around parts of the UK almost throughout the year.

Some exceptional sea temperatures were also discovered by measurement buoys off the UK coast, known as Wavenet and managed by the Environmental, Fisheries and Aqueous Sciences Center (CEFAS).

The record comes 2025 for warmth after sea temperatures increased in 2023 and 2024 as well.

Met office says its data from the end of June 2024 until now is temporary and will be completed in the coming months, but this usually leads to very simple changes.

Throughout the year, the weather was warmer on average [for the UK’s seas]Professor John Benigar, the main adviser to climate change at CEFAS.

“[The seas] It was heating for more than a century and we also witness the heat waves to come now. “

“What was a very rare phenomenon is now very common.”

Like heat waves on Earth, sea temperatures are affected by natural change and weather in the short term. A clear sunny sky with low winds – like most UK in early July – can heat the sea surface more quickly.

But the world’s oceans acquired about 90 % of the extra heat of the Earth from the human emissions of the planet’s gases aimed at the planet such as carbon dioxide.

This makes marine heat waves more likely and more intense.

“The main contributor to marine heat waves across the UK is the accumulation of heat in the ocean,” said Dr. Caroline Roland, President of the Ocean, Reza and Climate Change in the Mit office.

“We expect these events to become more frequent and more intense in the future,” she added.

With less than the sea breeze, this warmer water can amplify the ground heat waves, and it also has the ability to bring heavier rains.

The most hot seas are also less able to absorb carbon dioxide than the atmosphere, which may mean that our planet rises more quickly.

Marine warmth already raises challenges for fishing societies.

Ben Cooper has been a hunter in Whitestable on the North Kent coast since 1997, and it depends greatly on the common WHELK, a type of marine snail.

But what is a kind of cold water, and a large thermal wave in 2022 sparked a large group of these snails in the Times River.

“75 % of our profits pass through WHELKS, so you take it away and suddenly struggle,” explained Mr. Cooper.

Before the latest Heatwave wave, WHELKS started recovery but said that the losses forced him to expand his work.

Mr. Cooper summoned fishing trips with his father in the eighties. At that time, they depended on the thickness of the cod.

“We have lost cod because it was basically very warm. They went to the north,” he said.

The exact distribution of marine species varies from year to year, but researchers expect that marine life in the United Kingdom will continue to change as humans continue to heat the earth.

“In the long term, fishermen may have to change the species they target and that they are hunting,” Dr. Benegar suggested.

“As consumers, we may have to change the types we eat.”

Additional reports by Becky Dell, Maho Tanaka and Jendaf Hughes