Climate change is impacting ecosystems worldwide. Estuaries are diverse and important aquatic ecosystems; and yet until now we have lacked information on the response of estuaries to climate change. Here we present data from a twelve-year monitoring program, involving 6200 observations of 166 estuaries along >1100 kilometres of the Australian coastline encompassing all estuary morphologies. Estuary temperatures increased by 2.16 °C on average over 12 years, at a rate of 0.2 °C year−1, with waters acidifying at a rate of 0.09 pH units and freshening at 0.086 PSU year−1.
Scanes, E., Scanes, P.R. & Ross, P.M. Climate change rapidly warms and acidifies Australian estuaries. Nat Commun 11, 1803 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-15550-z