Climate Change
There is little evidence that climate change is having any impact on radioactive substances within the OSPAR Maritime Area at present. Increased levels of naturally occurring radionuclides in the Arctic Ocean have been linked to a reduction in the depth of permafrost and increased mobility of these radionuclides in soils (Kipp et al. 2018). However, there is a potential for predicted climate change effects (IPCC 2021) to influence many aspects of radioactive substances in the marine environment, and this could have an impact on the assessments currently being carried out by OSPAR as well as the underlying parameters to such assessments.
Climate change may have the potential to affect the sources of radioactive substances to the OSPAR Maritime Area, owing to predicted increasing sea levels and storm surge events that may result in increased remobilisation of radionuclides from coastal sediments as well as threatening the safety of coastal nuclear facilities. Changing precipitation patterns, including more extreme precipitation events, that result in increased run-off could lead to greater inputs of radioactive substances from the terrestrial environment. Climate change impacts may lead to changes in the oceanic transport of discharged radionuclides that would then affect the distribution of radioactive substances in the OSPAR Maritime Area. Warming seas may affect the uptake of radionuclides by marine biota and food web structures leading to changes in the biological transfer of radionuclides.
Ocean acidification
There is little evidence that ocean acidification is having any impact on radioactive substances within the OSPAR Maritime Area at present. However, ocean acidification may have the potential to affect the mobility of radionuclides in the marine environment and their uptake by marine biota through impacts on the availability of other compounds (e.g., organic ligands). Further, ocean acidification may affect the remobilisation of radionuclides from sediments due to changes in solution chemistry (e.g. pH).
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