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Global warning could affect the oceans

SOUTHHAMPTON, England, Nov. 5 (UPI) -- British and U.S. scientists are warning deep-sea ecosystems occupying 60 percent of the Earth's surface could be vulnerable to the effects of global warming.

Study co-author Henry Ruhl of Britain's National Oceanography Center, said no one is really sure yet whether global climate change is already having major impacts on deep-sea ecosystems. But long-term studies during the last two decades have revealed unexpectedly large changes in deep-ocean ecosystems that are clearly linked to changes in the surface ocean resulting from variation in climate.

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The scientists said much of the new understanding has come from two key sites -- one in the northeastern Pacific and the other in the northeastern Atlantic -- from water depths of around 13,400 feet and 16,000 feet.

Deep-sea processes are rarely considered in discussions of global warming, the scientists noted.

"This out-of-sight, out-of-mind mentality in ignoring the vast expanse of the deep ocean needs to be reversed in light of long-term datasets from two major ocean basins showing that the deep sea is strongly impacted by climate variation over a range of time scales."

The study that included Kenneth Smith Jr. of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute is detailed in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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