The Week in Germany: Business and Technology

November 16, 2006

North Sea Not Immune to Climate Change

As delegates from across the globe meet to tackle the climate change challenge in Nairobi, German experts have measured record high water temperatures in the once chilly North Sea.

German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel is attending the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Nairobi, running from November 6 to 17. The twelfth Conference of the 189 Parties to the United Nations Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) and the second meeting of the 166 parties to the Kyoto Protocol opened with a warning that climate change may be the most serious threat ever to face humankind.

Germany has put environment and energy policy high on its agenda for both its EU and G8 presidencies in 2007. Earlier this month Chancellor Angela Merkel met with British Prime Minister Tony Blair to discuss post-Kyoto climate policy beyond 2012 (see related statement below).

An advertisement created by the German government to warn about the potentially devastating consequences of unchecked climate change.

An unprecedented warming up period

Since 1988 the North Sea has been undergoing its longest and most intense warming phase since measurements were first taken in 1873, Hartmut Heinrich of the Federal Seafaring and Hydrographic Agency (BSH) said on Monday in Hamburg as reported by dpa.

In October of this year the average water temperature was 14,2 degrees Celsius (57.6 degrees Fahrenheit), 2,4 degrees Celsius (36.3F) above the average temperature the North Sea sustained for years. At the same time the North Sea broke its own previous high temperture record, recorded in October 2005, by nearly one full degree Celsius.

Viewed in isolotation, the higher temperature could stem from an extreme heat wave last July and a warm September. But researchers have determined that they are part of a wider ongoing heating trend. Since the BSH started taken the North Sea's "temperature" in 1968 until about 1993, it was about 11,8 degrees Celsius (53.2F) on average.

According to Heinrich, the warming phase recorded since 1988 is long overdue to be replaced by a cooling phase. This would fit in more with the usual changes between warm and cold periods every five to 15 years.

The upshot, according to the sobering research results: Marine flora and fauna from as far south as the Bay of Biscay, off the coasts of France and Spain, will increasingly wend their way all the way up to the North Sea, altering its ecosystem forever.

Links:

UN Framework Convention on Climate Change

Germany, UK cooperate on climate change

BSH (in German)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Climate Change

Federal Ministry for the Environment

EU and US Search for Common Ground at Helsinki Climate Talks (TWIG, Oct. 27, 2006)

Al Gore Film Opens in Germany (TWIG, Oct. 20, 2006)