Rising ocean temperatures are leading to a rise in shellfish infected with a potentially deadly toxin, according to new research.

There have been a number of vast blooms of algae — so large they can be seen from space — off the west coast of the US in recent years.

One nasty side effect is that some of them produce a potent neurotoxin called domoic acid, which then accumulates in shellfish, particularly filter feeders like razor clams.

If humans eat shellfish containing enough of the poison it can lead to seizures, memory loss or, on rare occasions, death.

​Domoic acid poisoning has also been linked to mass deaths of sea lions, dolphins, whales and other marine mammals.

In 2015, the value of the Dungeness crab fishery on the US west coast fell by nearly $100m after the one particular bad episode.

Now researchers working on a way to predict when these algal blooms will occur — so monitoring can be increased to spot the affected shellfish before they are sold for human consumption — have discovered a link with warmer ocean temperatures.

These occurred because of two natural weather processes, the El Niño effect and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation.

However the scientists warned that if ocean temperatures rise because of global warming, this could lead to an increase in the numbers of poisonous shellfish.

One of the researchers, Bill Peterson, of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), said: "This study will help us determine if the increased climate-ocean variability we expect will lead to more widespread outbreaks like the West Coast-wide domoic acid event of 2015-16.

“If so, we'll likely see increased domoic acid effects throughout the ocean food web.”

Domoic acid is produced by micro-algae called pseudo-nitzschia, which are eaten by anchovies, shellfish and other animals.

When these are eaten by humans, it can cause amnesic shellfish poisoning, also known as domoic acid poisoning, which was only identified as a public health risk in 1987.

10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Show all 10 1 /10 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change A group of emperor penguins face a crack in the sea ice, near McMurdo Station, Antarctica Kira Morris 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Floods destroyed eight bridges and ruined crops such as wheat, maize and peas in the Karimabad valley in northern Pakistan, a mountainous region with many glaciers. In many parts of the world, glaciers have been in retreat, creating dangerously large lakes that can cause devastating flooding when the banks break. Climate change can also increase rainfall in some areas, while bringing drought to others. Hira Ali 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Smoke – filled with the carbon that is driving climate change – drifts across a field in Colombia. Sandra Rondon 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Amid a flood in Islampur, Jamalpur, Bangladesh, a woman on a raft searches for somewhere dry to take shelter. Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable places in the world to sea level rise, which is expected to make tens of millions of people homeless by 2050. Probal Rashid 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Sindh province in Pakistan has experienced a grim mix of two consequences of climate change. “Because of climate change either we have floods or not enough water to irrigate our crop and feed our animals,” says the photographer. “Picture clearly indicates that the extreme drought makes wide cracks in clay. Crops are very difficult to grow.” Rizwan Dharejo 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Hanna Petursdottir examines a cave inside the Svinafellsjokull glacier in Iceland, which she said had been growing rapidly. Since 2000, the size of glaciers on Iceland has reduced by 12 per cent. Tom Schifanella 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change A river once flowed along the depression in the dry earth of this part of Bangladesh, but it has disappeared amid rising temperatures. Abrar Hossain 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change A shepherd moves his herd as he looks for green pasture near the village of Sirohi in Rajasthan, northern India. The region has been badly affected by heatwaves and drought, making local people nervous about further predicted increases in temperature. Riddhima Singh Bhati 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change A factory in China is shrouded by a haze of air pollution. The World Health Organisation has warned such pollution, much of which is from the fossil fuels that cause climate change, is a “public health emergency”. Leung Ka Wa 10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change Water levels in reservoirs, like this one in Gers, France, have been getting perilously low in areas across the world affected by drought, forcing authorities to introduce water restrictions. Mahtuf Ikhsan

Writing in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers said there findings were relevant to other parts of the world.

“Our observations reveal a common relationship: the warmer the ocean conditions, the more likely domoic acid is to surpass alert thresholds during upwelling season, and the more toxic and/or more widespread a domoic acid event has the potential to become,” they wrote.

“The risk parameters presented in this work as indicative of elevated domoic acid in shellfish … can be applied to future examination of relationships between warm regimes and domoic acid along the [US] West Coast, as well as other eastern boundary currents worldwide.”

And they said while the warming they had studied was a natural process, human-induced climate change may have a similar effect.

“If these warm ocean regimes become more persistent due to global warming, as some hypothesise, West Coast domoic acid events may also increase in persistence and frequency,” the researchers wrote.

They warned that the poison could linger in shellfish long after the algal bloom that caused it.

“Part of the concern is that a large influx of the plankton that produce domoic acid can have long-term impacts," said Morgaine McKibben, a PhD student at Oregon State University and lead author of the paper.

“For example, razor clams are filter-feeders that bioaccumulate this toxin in their muscles, so they take much longer to flush it out than other shellfish.