Climate change and its diverse regional impacts on Greenland's marine biota

• DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2025.179443
• Publication Date: 2025-04-25T03:05:02Z
• Authors: Thomas Gjerluff Ager; Mikael K. Sejr; Carlos M. Duarte; Kenneth D. Mankoff; Vibe Schourup-Kri...; David Boertmann; Eva Friis Møller; Jakob Thyrring; Dorte Krause-Jensen
• Keywords: Biota

This study quantified climate-driven changes and spatial variability in key environmental drivers over four decades along Greenland's coastal shelf marine ecosystems evaluated their impacts on biota divided into six regions. We analyzed trends sea ice concentration seasonality, surface temperatures, salinity, freshwater inputs from discharge runoff. West, East, Southeast Greenland were most impacted by climate change, driven increasing temperatures (0.22-0.5 °C decade-1), (10.14-24.93 Gt yr-1 declining concentrations (3-5.3 % more open water days (10.92-23.9 decade-1). The Northwest Northeast regions appeared resilient due to lower temperature increases (0.01-0.03 decade-1) declines (0.5-2.1 Changes Southwest limited (0.27 runoff (7.66 since the 1990s. Synthesized evidence 94 time series showed 73 exhibiting significant changes, 37 identified an driver: (20), (19), (2). Only considered multiple drivers. Biota mirrored regional changes; 78 changed significantly East combined, southwest, 56 northern Fish, benthic flora, fauna responses remained unclear data gaps, underscoring need for further research. In conclusion, our findings reveal widespread biological change linked but with distinct patterns associated across Greenland.