Maine’s vital kelp forests are dying as climate change and marine heat waves transform coastal waters

For three years, Shane Farrell has been documenting an underwater catastrophe along Maine’s coast. The University of Maine Ph.D. student and his research team at the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences are witnessing the collapse of kelp forests that have thrived in these waters for centuries. What they’re finding beneath the waves tells a troubling story of how rapidly our marine ecosystems are changing.

Maine’s kelp forests, once vast underwater meadows that swayed in the Atlantic currents, are now disappearing at an alarming rate. These underwater ecosystems serve as critical nurseries for fish and provide habitat for countless marine species, making their decline a serious threat to the entire coastal food web. The primary culprit is ocean warming, with devastating marine heat waves delivering killing blows to these temperature-sensitive giants.

But rising temperatures aren’t the only threat. The weakened kelp forests face a perfect storm of challenges: invasive red turf algae that smother remaining kelp, exploding sea urchin populations that devour what’s left, and increasingly powerful storm surges that tear away struggling plants. This cascade of climate-related impacts is transforming Maine’s underwater landscape in ways that may be irreversible.

The research being conducted by Farrell and his team is crucial for understanding how quickly these changes are occurring and what might be done to protect remaining kelp populations. Their underwater surveys provide a firsthand look at one of climate change’s most dramatic impacts on New England’s marine environment.