Study: Climate change affecting food, habitat for whales and dolphins

Whales, dolphins and seals living in U.S. waters face major threats from warming ocean temperatures, rising sea levels and decreasing sea ice volumes associated with climate change, according to a first-of-its-kind assessment.

The study, published last month in the journal PLOS ONE, is evidence that the way the U.S. manages whales and dolphins needs to adapt in the era of climate change, advocates for marine mammals said. The scientists looked at the animals' degree of exposure to climate change and sensitivity and capacity to adapt to it. They found 72% of the stocks were highly or very highly vulnerable to climate change, with a little less than half falling in the"very high" category.

The NOAA study is significant because it's the first to look broadly at U.S. marine mammals and attempt to predict their resilience to climate change, said Regina Asmutis-Silvia, a biologist with Massachusetts-based Whale and Dolphin Conservation who was not involved in the study. The impact of climate change on whales around the world has grown as a subject of scientific inquiry in recent years. Many studies about whales and climate change look only at a single species or a narrower geographic area, said Laura Ganley, a research scientist with the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life at the New England Aquarium in Boston.

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