Helping to understand how climate variations will affect cetaceans

On those days when pandemic news overwhelms all our thoughts, climate change remains hidden behind the virus screen. However, this critical situation has shown us the power humans have to make the difference if we really want to, or, in other words, if we really care. However, climate change is now undeniable, and for years, is one of the main worries of scientists. It will have (and it has already) a strong impact in all aspects of life in this planet, as well as on its environment. 

We work with tourism; we work with the ocean. And just like that, we belong to one of the five sectors of the “Blue Economy”: “Coastal and maritime tourism”. Therefore, we are committed to do a “sustainable use of ocean resources while preserving the health of the ocean ecosystem”. However, we all know that climate change may have important effects on the ocean, and also on our activities on it. Therefore, a European project called SOCLIMPACT (https://soclimpact.net/) aims to evaluate the effects of climate change on the Blue Economy. SOCLIMPACT works together in 12 different islands of the Atlantic and Mediterranean and with 24 scientific partners. One of the case studies of the project focuses more specifically on assessing the effects on cetaceans (find more info about effects of climate on cetaceans in our blog – https://whalewatchingazores.com/blog/2019/09/climate-changes/), and therefore, on the whale watching activity. This issue is the main target of the PhD project of Andreia Sousa (https://sites.google.com/view/whales-climate/home), researcher from the University of Lisbon. She will work together with other researchers of the Macaronesia to understand the potential climate impacts. To do so, researchers need to compare the historical and actual situation with the upcoming different scenarios that represent the future conditions. Hence, Futurismo has shared its cetacean sightings database to help to understand how the environment influences (and will influence) the cetaceans of the Azores; and hopefully, understand how climate will shape up the future of whale watching in the Macaronesia.

Written by Laura González