Saving Seafood

Climate report warns of impact on coastal communities

November 29, 2018 — Rising temperatures and sea levels caused by climate change threaten a way of life along the New England coast, and the region’s tourism, agriculture and fishing industries are at risk from damaging storms and flooding, according to a new federal report.

The report, produced by 13 federal agencies and more than 300 climate scientists, concludes the planet is getting warmer, human activity is contributing to it, and we are approaching a point of no return in terms of the damage to the climate. The government report details how that will hurt regions of the country.

In the Northeast, the report projects temperatures to rise faster than the global average, or about 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit above pre-Industrial Age levels, by 2035.

“This would be the largest increase in the contiguous United States and would occur as much as two decades before global average temperatures reach a similar milestone,” it said.

Rising seas and storms will inundate seaside communities, eroding sections of coast at rates of 3.3 feet a year in the next century, according to the report.

“These changes to the coastal landscape would threaten the sustainability of communities and their livelihoods,” the report stated. “Many fishing communities rely on small docks and other shoreside infrastructure for their fishing operations, increasing the risk of substantial disruption if they are lost to sea level rise and increasing storm frequency.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Maine fisheries and blueberries could be at stake due to climate change, report says

November 29, 2018 — Climate change has helped Maine’s lobster yield increase fourfold since the 1980s, as warming waters to the south have propelled lobsters north in search of colder waters. But if summer sea temperatures along Maine’s coast continue rising and cross a potentially perilous threshold, lobsters’ survival in a more temperate Gulf of Maine could be in doubt.

The Gulf of Maine has warmed faster than 99 percent of the world’s oceans, and the trend is expected to continue. The warming that has taken place so far, as well as the decline of cod, has proven favorable for Maine’s lobster yields in recent years, but if sea temperatures during the summer rise above 68 degrees Fahrenheit, lobster mortality will increase.

That’s one conclusion from a new report detailing the potential effects of climate change on Maine’s coast. The report, released earlier this month by the Climate Change Institute at the University of Maine, took a close look at how climate change could affect fishing and agriculture. It imagines five climate change scenarios, how they would unfold over the next two decades and the impacts from each one.

The report by Paul Mayewski, the institute’s director, and Maine State Climatologist Sean Birkel predicts an overall trend of warmer, wetter weather with rising sea temperatures, shorter winters, longer summers and more frequent storms.

These predictions are in line with the National Climate Assessment that the Trump administration published the day after Thanksgiving and came a week after Mayewski and Birkel’s report. The national assessment predicts an increase in extreme weather events due to climate change, and major economic losses and heightened health risks as a result.

A global or national climate change assessment might not be applicable to all states or even regions within a state, however, which is why UMaine’s Climate Change Institute has focused on specific regions of Maine, Mayewski said. Mayewski and Birkel used past climate change data collected through Birkel’s Climate Reanalyzer tool to make predictions about coastal Maine’s climate future, and they plan to do the same for other regions in the state.

“Our goal through reports like this is to give people a better idea of how the climate has changed in the past few decades, and understanding what the plausible scenarios are for future climate and how this might impact, in this case, fisheries and blueberries,” Mayewski said.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

MASSACHUSETTS: Nantucket Bay Scalloping Struggling To Say Afloat

November 29, 2018 — The commercial bay scallop season opened on Nantucket at the beginning of November and will run through the end of March, but for bay scallopers, this year’s harvest is already looking to be pretty lean.

Out in Madaket Harbor on the western-most edge of Nantucket, scalloper Blair Perkins is throwing out a test dredge and scanning his catch for the iconic bivalve that seems to be getting scarcer and scarcer in a net full of shells, crabs and Spanish moss.

“It’s been a terrible season. I’ve been scalloping for 30-odd years, since the 80s off and on, and this is the worst year I’ve seen it, ever,” Perkins said.

Bay scalloping has never been an easy job. To do it right requires a fisherman to be out on the water during the coldest time of the year, and it’s a lot of physical work for, sometimes, not much reward. Perkins drags a mesh bag attached to a string into the water and will pull it up periodically to dump out the catch. Usually, he’ll pull up about 20 scallops in each dredge, but since the season opened this month, he’s pulling up closer to 10 to 15 in a catch. While at its peak in the 1980s, bay scallopers would bring in about one hundred thousand bushels of scallops a season. By comparison, this season’s catch is predicted to be around five thousand.

These scallops are particularly sensitive to water quality changes, and most importantly, they rely on the harbor’s eel grass for their spawn to grow. Scientists credit water pollution, which has stifled eel grass, as a primary reason for the decline in bay scallops.

“So the pressures are additional nutrients in the water, septic systems overloading, increased ferry traffic. All these things come down to water quality,” said Nantucket town biologist Tara Riley.

The town has been working to restore eel grass habitats around the island, but Riley is still worried that the tradition of bay scalloping, something Nantucketers have done over the winter since the 1800s, is drawing less fishermen today.

“There aren’t a lot of young people that are getting involved,” Riley said. “It’s not a dependable way to make your income in the winter, so you have to have options. You can’t just put all your eggs in one basket when it comes to the bay scallop fishery.”

Read the full story at WGBH

As oceans heats up off Northwest Alaska, the fishing does too

November 28, 2018 — Alaska fishermen haven’t been having an easy time with the changing climate.

The cod population in the Gulf of Alaska is at its lowest level on record. Officials have declared disasters after the failure of multiple Alaska salmon fisheries.

So what’s happening farther north in Alaska might surprise you: Fishermen there have been landing huge catches, in numbers that haven’t been seen in decades.

Seth Kantner is one of them. He was raised in a sod igloo 150 miles from the Northwest Alaska hub town of Kotzebue, and has been commercial fishing for chum salmon in Kotzebue Sound for decades.

He’s also a writer, and in an interview from his pickup truck looking out over the sound, he said he’s a little apprehensive about some of the changes he’s been seeing in the region — particularly in the weather and the seasons.

Some of those changes, Kantner said, have fed into the fishing, which has been booming. In the summer of 2017, he fished to the last day of the season to try to hit 100,000 pounds of salmon for the year, which he said is “far and away the most I’d ever caught.”

This past summer, he added: “I broke 200,000 pounds, which is still — I can’t believe it.”

Just to be clear — Kantner said that two summers ago, he caught more fish than he’d ever caught before. And then this summer, he caught twice that much again.

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

UMaine Coastal Maine Climate Futures report issued

November 28, 2018 — Climate change means Mainers can expect to see significant environmental changes in the next two decades and they should start to prepare by planning now, University of Maine researchers say.

Using weather data dating back more than a century — to 1895 — UMaine researchers are able to track climate change and predict what the state may see in the future.

The purpose of the report is to provide both an overview of Maine’s historical climate but to provide plausible climate scenarios for the next 20 years,” said Sean Birkel, a UMaine research assistant professor and Maine State Climatologist.

Birkel and Paul Mayewski, director of the Climate Change Institute, created the Coastal Maine Climate Futures report to help prepare Mainers for what they call “significant environmental changes” on the horizon.

Since January 1895, the average coastal temperature in Maine and the sea surface temperature have both increased by 3 degrees, and rainfall has increased by around six inches.

That’s been great for some industries, like agriculture and lobster in the Gulf of Maine, which have increased four-fold since the 1980s, but not so great for others, including the cod fisheries because cod cannot tolerate the warmer temperatures.

“All of this is the human impacts,” Birkel said.

The melting of the polar ice cap, which is due to increased greenhouse gas emissions, and increases in the frequency of El Nino warm and dry weather conditions, are key factors in the warming trend for Maine.

“In these images, we see how the end of summer Arctic sea ice extent has changed — 1980 on the left and 2016 on the right,” Birkel said pointing to images of ice on the northern pole.

“So as Arctic sea ice declines… It’s affecting the weather because there is more open ocean water, there is more absorption of heat,” he said. “There is also more heat exchange between the ocean and the atmosphere.”

Read the full story at WVFX

Trump Administration Report Recommends Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions To Protect Oceans From Climate Change

November 27, 2018 — The Fourth National Climate Assessment is a landmark report that was published last week on the day after Thanksgiving. It summarizes the impacts of climate change in the United States as well as potential mitigation and adaptation measures. The report states that the combined effect of burning fossil fuels, developing natural landscapes, and deforestation have increased the concentration of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in Earth’s atmosphere* and emphasizes that drastically reducing GHGs is necessary to prevent the most catastrophic consequences of climate change.

According to the report, climate change is modifying the ocean environment in three primary ways:  warming, oxygen loss, and acidification. These “stressors” have large implications for ocean ecosystems and marine fisheries. Globally, ocean surface temperatures have increased by nearly 1.3°F over the past century and “… more than 90% of the extra heat linked to carbon emissions is contained in the ocean.” As the ocean warms, seawater not only expands and causes sea levels to rise, but it also loses its ability to hold gases – including oxygen. Additionally, as carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted by human activities dissolves in seawater, it undergoes a series of chemical reactions that are gradually causing the ocean to become more acidic.

While warming, oxygen loss, and acidification will likely reduce the diversity of life in the sea, they will also impact fisheries, seafood farming, and recreational activities. These stressors will also interact and can have complex impacts. For example, as climate change progresses, hurricanes will become more frequent and intense. These hurricanes may redistribute nutrients that cause massive algal blooms that are sustained by warmer temperatures. When the blooms die off, microbes respire as they assist in the algae’s decomposition, simultaneously producing CO2 and consuming oxygen that cause ocean acidification and oxygen loss. The severe red tide along the Florida coast this year was likely a product of this series of events.

Read the full story at Forbes

Here’s how climate change will impact your part of the country

November 27, 2018 — Northeast:

  • There will be shorter winters and longer summers.
  • There will be a decline of species that support some of the most valuable and iconic fisheries, including Atlantic cod, Atlantic sea scallops and American lobsters.
  • Expect approximately 650 excess deaths per year caused by extreme heat by 2050
  • Health risks from contaminated flood waters. For example, because much of the historical development of industry and commerce in New England occurred along rivers, canals, coasts, and other bodies of water, these areas often have a higher density of contaminated sites, waste management facilities, and petroleum storage facilities that are potentially vulnerable to flooding.

Northwest:

  • Ocean/water warming: Increasing ocean temperatures and acidity impact fish survival, the report states. As water temperatures continue to rise, negative impacts on fisheries are expected to increase. With increased stream temperature projections, the report predicts a 22% reduction in salmon habitat in Washington by the end of the century if emissions continue to release at a higher rate. That kind of salmon population loss would correlate to a $3 billion economic loss.

Alaska:

  • The state is “warming faster than any other state” and “twice as fast as the global average since the middle of the 20th century.”
  • Devastating impact to fishing industry: Alaskan fisheries “are among the most productive and valuable in the world.” A “recent heat wave in the Gulf of Alaska, which led to an inability of the fishery to harvest the Pacific cod quota in 2016 and 2017 and to an approximately 80% reduction in the allowable quota in 2018.”

Read the full story at CNN

From skiing to salmon runs, the national climate report predicts a Northwest in peril

November 27, 2018 — Climate change’s effects – among them, increasing wildfires, disease outbreak and drought – are taking a toll on the Northwest, and what’s to come will threaten and transform our way of life from the salmon streams to ski slopes, according to a new federal climate assessment released Friday.

The 1,000-plus-page report, produced by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, is the most comprehensive evaluation to date of climate change’s effects on the nation’s economy, human health, agriculture and environment. Thirteen federal agencies contributed to the report, which was required to be published by Congress.

The federal report’s stark, direct and largely negative projections are at odds with President Donald Trump’s skeptical view of climate science. But federal officials, like National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration researcher David Easterling, left little room for ambiguity about whether climate change was real and who was causing it.

Temperature data, Easterling said, provided “clear and compelling evidence that global average temperature is much higher and rising more rapidly than anything modern civilization has experienced and that this warming trend can only be explained by human activities …”

Read the full story at The Seattle Times

Blockages gone, fish back in post-Sandy projects in Mass., 5 other states

November 26, 2018 — Billions of dollars have been spent on the recovery from Superstorm Sandy to help people get their lives back together, but a little-noticed portion of that effort is quietly helping another population along the shoreline: fish that need to migrate from coastal rivers out to the sea and back.

After the 2012 storm, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spent nearly $11 million on a series of projects to remove dams and other blockages from coastal waters in six states, partnering with local environmental groups. Fish species that were scarce or entirely absent from those waterways for years soon began showing up again.

The so-called “aquatic connectivity” projects in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Maryland and Virginia were part of a $105 million effort not only to fix what was damaged by Sandy, but also to improve environmental conditions in places where recreational benefits could help tourism and the economy, as well. While the storm did its worst damage in New York and New Jersey, its effects were felt in many states along the East Coast.

“The idea was not only to do good things for fish and wildlife, but to provide community benefits and make communities more resilient,” said Rick Bennett, a scientist with the Fish and Wildlife Service in Massachusetts. “By removing dams, you also reduce flooding, especially upstream.”

Aquatic species benefiting from the work include the Eastern Brook trout, sea run brown trout, sea lamprey, American eel and river herring.

One of the first and most successful projects happened in Spring Lake, New Jersey’s Wreck Pond. For years, the conflicting goals of protecting the environment and some of the New Jersey shore’s priciest real estate from storms have bedeviled the pond.

Storms sometimes open a channel between the 48-acre tidal pond and the ocean, but governments keep sealing it shut to protect homes from flooding. The result was poor water quality and much narrower access to the ocean, which hurts fish that travel from ocean to pond to breed.

The American Littoral Society oversaw construction of a concrete culvert between the pond and the ocean to make it easier for fish, including herring, to reach the sea. In addition to letting fish in and out more easily, the culvert can be opened or closed as needed during storms to control flooding.

It succeeded at both goals, said Tim Dillingham, the group’s executive director.

“The restoration of connectivity to allow fish to return and spawn has been a great success,” he said. “We’re seeing fish come back in numbers we hadn’t seen before. And it has also added to the resiliency of the area during storms, by adding capacity to deal with flooding.”

Read the full story from the Associated Press at Boston.com

Changing climate to put further pressure on New England, federal report predicts

November 26, 2018 — New England’s forests, fisheries and cultural traditions are already experiencing significant disruptions from a changing climate and will face additional transformation over the coming decades, according to a federal report released Friday.

Northeastern states are seeing some of the largest changes in the nation, yet conditions are shifting even faster in New England than the region as a whole, in some instances. Annual average temperatures in New England, for example, rose by roughly 3 degrees since the beginning of the last century compared to 1.8 degrees in the contiguous United States.

Those temperature changes – combined with shifts in precipitation levels and rapid warming in the Gulf of Maine – will continue to impact the health, economy and aging infrastructure of the region.

“For example, because much of the historical development of industry and commerce in New England occurred along rivers, canals, coasts, and other bodies of water, these areas often have a higher density of contaminated sites, waste management facilities, and petroleum storage facilities that are potentially vulnerable to flooding,” reads the report from 13 federal agencies.

“As a result, increases in flood frequency or severity could increase the spread of contaminants into soils and waterways, resulting in increased risks to the health of nearby ecosystems, animals, and people – a set of phenomena well documented following Superstorm Sandy,” the report says.

While the political debate over climate change continues, there is little doubt among fishermen or the scientists who work with them that the Gulf of Maine is changing. Maine fishermen now routinely see species once found only in southern or mid-Atlantic states while stocks of northern shrimp and cod have been depleted or moved north to cooler waters.

The report cited numerous examples of New England fishermen attempting to adapt to those changes and acknowledged that the arrival of new species will create new opportunities. But the authors also warned that markets, shoreside infrastructure as well as regulatory restriction on what fishermen can catch are often slower to respond.

Scientists also predict that species particularly important to New England face a bleaker future because of rising acidity levels as the oceans absorb more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald