Effects of climate change on Mediterranean marine ecosystems: the case of the Catalan Sea

Abstract

The effects of climate change associated with human activity are starting to be detected in marine ecosystems of all the world's oceans The wide range of processes that are affected by climate change (e.g. meteorological, chemical, biological), however, make it very difficult to predict the magnitude and rate of its effects. Only an extensive knowledge of how the system operates will allow us to understand, interpret and predict the consequences of climate change. However, there is still very little information available on marine ecosystems, far less than there is on land ecosystems, which is mainly due to the obvious difficulties involved in studying the sea.