There’s already a dwindling number of fish in the ocean, due to overfishing and other human mucking-up of environments — and as if that weren’t enough, scientists are now saying that climate change will make the surviving fish 24 percent smaller than they are now. Instead of “one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish,” we will now have “three-quarters fish and 1.5 fish, red fish, blue fish,” which just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
The problem, according to the BBC, is that as ocean temperatures rise, fishes’ bodies will have to work harder to function, and they’ll need more oxygen:
Although this data projects relatively small changes in temperatures at the bottom of the oceans, the resulting impacts on fish body size are “unexpectedly large” according to the paper …
“Rising temperatures directly increase the metabolic rate of the fish’s body function,” he told BBC News.
“This leads to an increase in oxygen demand for normal body activities. So the fish will run out of oxygen for growth at a smaller body size.”
It’s basically the same principle as hot yoga: When you’re in a warm room, your body works harder. Except that the fish will never get to leave and drink a self-congratulatory giant Frappuccino, so unlike you at Bikram, they will just keep on getting smaller.
