Marine climate change research in Nordic regions: recent trends and current state

No abstracts are to be cited without prior reference to the author.

Ocean resources are subject to increasing anthropogenic exploitation, causing ecosystem vulnerability to climate change (CC). Such vulnerability is difficult to monitor, thus hypothetical future scenarios are challenging to predict. Although public awareness of the consequences of CC is limited, they are important topics of research due to their ecological and societal implications. The objective of this study was to assess the current state of CC research in the northern North Atlantic, which is economically important for fisheries and marine research. We analysed structure, focus, and historical trends of CC research through the categorization of 1478 peer-reviewed research articles by environmental variable, geographical region, group of organism, and discipline. From all the environmental variables analysed, temperature appeared to be the focus of most studies. In addition, we found that Atlantic cod was the most studied species, and the North Sea the most studied region. Furthermore, papers focused on biology increased significantly in proportion when compared to research on climatology and oceanography, thus suggesting an increased interest in indirect consequences of CC. We believe this study provides insight into the current state of CC research. Furthermore, we aim to provide a database that serves as a valuable asset for future CC studies.