July 13, 2018 — The slow warming of the Earth someday will require difficult adaptations in many sectors of society, for example farming, energy and insurance.
One challenge already is here — fish. They are voting with their fins, moving northward out of warming ocean waters and into cooler temperatures they prefer. And that is disrupting fisheries management and quotas, which only recently had achieved stability and acceptance.
Earlier this year, a study led by a Rutgers University marine biologist predicted two-thirds of the 700 ocean species it analyzed would be forced to migrate — some more than 600 miles — in the worst warming scenarios.
A 2016 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration study found half of the Northeast’s fish and shellfish were highly vulnerable to climate change. It warned that fisheries dependent on a single valuable species, such as New Jersey is on scallops, are at particular risk.
And global warming might shrink fish as well. A pair of University of British Columbia scientists last year reported the size of fish is likely to decrease by 20 to 30 percent for every 1 degree Celsius increase in water temperature, as their metabolisms speed up and the oxygen content of the water diminishes.