On a
microscopic level, scientists also have found plankton in the North Atlantic
where it had not existed for at least 800,000 years.
The
whale's odyssey and the surprising appearance of the plankton indicates a
migration of species through the Northwest Passage, a worrying sign of how
global warming is affecting animals and plants in the oceans as well as on land.
"The
implications are enormous. It's a threshold that has been crossed," said
Philip C. Reid, of the Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean Science in Plymouth,
England.
"It's
an indication of the speed of change that is taking place in our world in the
present day because of climate change," he said in a telephone interview
Friday.
Reid said
the last time the world witnessed such a major incursion from the Pacific was 2
million years ago, which had "a huge impact on the North Atlantic,"
driving some species to extinction as the newcomers dominated the competition
for food.
Reid's
study of plankton and the research on the whale, co-authored by Aviad Scheinin
of the Israel Marine Mammal Research and Assistance Center, are among nearly
300 scientific papers written over the last 13 years that are being synthesized
and published this year by Project Clamer, a collaboration of 17 institutes on
climate change and the oceans.
