Why ocean warming experiments may be making misleading predictions

Accurate experiments on how ocean warming affects marine life are vital to ensure we can best prepare for the future, protect our food sources, and help safeguard ocean ecosystems. But some of these experiments may miss how species actually respond to rising temperatures. According to a meta-analysis published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, the way these changes are studied may not match the reality of our warming seas.

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While these calculations provide a baseline, they may not reflect the real world because the ocean is warming over a much longer period. Scientists at Simon Fraser University in Canada wanted to know if the ramping rate, which is the speed at which water is warmed up in experiments, undermines their accuracy.

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To find out, they screened more than 1,000 papers and identified 48 studies with sufficient information to analyze. The team discovered serious flaws in many of the experiments. First, nearly half of the studies couldn't be analyzed because their authors never reported how fast they raised the temperature. Of the studies that did report it, 29% didn't use ramping. Essentially, the animals were just dropped in hot water. And where ramping was used, researchers often found that warming the water was as fast, or even faster, than natural marine heat waves.

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Some of the 48 studies used slower, more realistic speeds. In these experiments, the results changed noticeably. For example, species that seemed less affected in fast-warming tests often had stronger negative effects when temperatures rose more gradually. The authors suggest that these slower experiments may better reflect what is actually happening in the oceans over long periods.