00:00Hello and welcome to Climate Now and this month we're here in Greece to ask how fish
00:09farmers in the Mediterranean can adapt to climate change.
00:13They're facing a lot of issues here, including rising water temperatures and falling oxygen
00:19levels.
00:20This year is a record, 25.5, this time of year it's a record.
00:28Well that's our story coming up, but first the very latest data from the Copernicus
00:32Climate Change Service.
00:35Globally it was the second warmest September on record, with temperatures 0.7 degrees Celsius
00:41above the 1991 to 2020 average.
00:44In Europe, September will be remembered for the devastating floods from Storm Boris.
00:49This map shows the precipitation anomaly for September, parts of the Czech Republic, Poland
00:54and Germany saw up to three months of rain in a few days.
00:59Well now to our report on the climate change challenges facing the aquaculture industry
01:04here in the Mediterranean, and if we have a quick look at the data we can see that on
01:08average sea surface temperatures across the Mediterranean are rising at 0.4 degrees Celsius
01:14per decade.
01:16And then if we have a look at this map, you can see that everywhere shaded in red faced
01:20its warmest sea surface temperatures on record this summer.
01:24So how are they coping?
01:25Well let's find out more.
01:31This fish farm in the Gulf of Carinthia looks idyllic, yet operations director George Tsatsos
01:37says the warming trend in the Mediterranean is hitting them hard.
01:41Last year, 2023, we had in this farm for two or three days 30 degrees, which was a record
01:48from here.
01:50The higher summer water temperatures are not good for business.
01:54It's a loss because as the temperature increases, the oxygen goes down, and that means we are
02:02forced to reduce feeding, and reducing feeding will lose growth.
02:09This farm produces 400 tonnes of sea bass per month, and to adapt to warming and preserve
02:14productivity, operations are now further offshore.
02:18So the first thing we have to do is to take the farms out on more exports, more open sea,
02:26with bigger depths, stronger currents, and better oxygen, which is quite important.
02:35There are 65 companies operating 328 fish farms in Greece.
02:39It's an important sector for export, which needs to remain sustainable.
02:43So scientists are stepping in to find solutions.
02:49Here in Crete, Nikos Papandrioulakis heads research into how best to rear sea bass in
02:53a warmer climate.
02:55They do so by comparing fish living in different temperature tanks.
03:00And each system has a different temperature.
03:03This is at 26, this is at 28, and this is at 30.
03:0826 degrees Celsius is ideal for raising sea bass, but as soon as the water temperature
03:13rises much higher, they don't put on weight and feed is wasted.
03:17In conditions where the temperature is around 28, 29, the fish grow less, but they also
03:24lose their capacity to transform feed to biomass.
03:29And at 33, 34, there is an almost complete physiological collapse, and the fish are not
03:35able not to grow and not to consume anything.
03:39Nikos and his team have used their observational data to model the fish growth and behavior
03:43and developed two applications.
03:46One uses satellite data and models to predict the oxygen requirements of the fish a few
03:50days in advance to help with feeding.
03:52The other allows fish farmers to test different species and locations against decadal climate
03:57trends.
04:00It is very important that the farmers have appropriate tools to adapt today and to plan
04:07for tomorrow.
04:10On this farm, the situation is evolving rapidly.
04:13They now put fewer fish in each cage, feed them twice a day to reduce oxygen demand,
04:17and use nets with bigger holes to increase water flow.
04:22As we are seeing the temperature going increasing year by year, we can't stay where we are.
04:30We need to, we need to, to act.
04:36Well that's all we have time for, but please head over to euronews.com slash climate now
04:41for more news on how our planet is changing.
04:44I'll see you next time.
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