December 3, 2024 — The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has dedicated USD 148 million (EUR 141 million) to improving NOAA’s data collection and analysis to support “climate-ready fisheries.”
The money will be used to modernize the agency’s science enterprise, providing the tools and information necessary to help the nation’s fisheries adapt to rapidly changing marine ecosystems.
Read the full story at SeafoodSource
December 2, 2024 — They call it “the Blob.”
A decade ago, sea surface temperatures in the Pacific shot up to 11 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than normal. A high pressure system parked over the ocean, and winds that churn cold, nutrient-rich water from the depths to the surface died down. Stagnant, warm water spread across the Northeast Pacific, in a marine heat wave that lasted for three years.
Under the surface, the food web broke down and ecosystems convulsed, at first unseen to humans on shore. But soon, clues washed up.
Dead Cassin’s auklets — small, dark gray seabirds — piled up on West Coast beaches. The auklets were followed by common murres, a slightly bigger black-and-white seabird. The carcasses were knee-deep in places, impossible to miss.
Researchers are still untangling the threads of what happened, and they caution against drawing universal conclusions from a single regional event. But the Blob fundamentally changed many scientists’ understanding of what climate change could do to life in the ocean; 10 years later, the disaster is one of our richest sources of information on what happens to marine life as the temperature rises.
And it is more relevant than ever. Last year, multiple “super-marine heat waves” blanketed parts of the ocean. Averaged together, global sea surface temperatures broke records, often by wide margins, for months in 2023 and 2024. As the climate warms, scientists expect extreme marine heat waves to become more frequent.
The Blob “was a window into what we might see in the future,” said Julia Parrish, a marine ecologist at the University of Washington who runs the Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team, a network of volunteers who survey beaches from Northern California to Alaska.
In a study published last year, Dr. Parrish and her colleagues estimate that the Blob eventually killed millions of seabirds, in waves of starvation.
November 29, 2024 — The Biden administration will spend an additional $147.5 million to modernize NOAA’s scientific programs aimed at fostering “climate-ready fisheries,” the agency announced Wednesday.
The Inflation Reduction Act funding, delivered in the final weeks of the Biden presidency, comes on top of $1.2 billion NOAA Fisheries received in June 2023 to advance the agency’s knowledge of how climate change is affecting marine life, including commercial and recreational fish stocks and endangered marine mammals like whales.
NOAA Fisheries will use $107.5 million to enhance science and data collection to account for the effects of climate change and improve fish and marine mammal stock assessments, while $40 million will go to the agency’s Climate, Ecosystems and Fisheries Initiative, which seeks to create a “nationwide decision support system” to help fishermen, fisheries managers, coastal communities and ocean-based industries to reduce climate impacts and improve resilience to changing ocean conditions.
November 25, 2024 — Scientists say the Gulf of Maine is now warming faster than almost anywhere else in the world. What does that mean for the state’s billion-dollar fishing industry?
Researchers at the University of Maine are developing new tools to ensure the sustainability of Maine’s commercial fisheries.
For years, scientists have been tracking how less cold water enters the Gulf of Maine while the hotter Gulf Stream is shifting north and adding warmer water to the region. This is impacting populations of different species, including Atlantic cod.
November 22, 2024 — On an unseasonably warm October day, the John H. Chafee pulled away from the docks of Fort Wetherill to conduct a survey of the marine life that call Narragansett Bay home.
Known as trawl fishing, scientists roll out a large net in the water, drag it along the ocean floor and see what comes up.
Christopher Parkins, the principal biologist of the trawl survey for the R.I. Department of Environmental Management (DEM), said state regulators have been using trawl fishing data since 1979 to decide which marine life can be caught and which need to be protected.
November 20, 2024 — Commercial fishermen harbor a range of feelings about an eventual phaseout of petroleum-based marine fuels: excitement, skepticism, anxiety, bewilderment, and curiosity, to name a few.
But there are two areas where we broadly agree. First, fishermen must take the lead in designing a low-carbon future for our own fleets by pursuing a range of technology pathways that align with our industry’s operational and regional diversity. Second, we cannot achieve this future without robust and flexible financial support from the government, combined with avoidance of costly top-down mandates. In short, fishermen need the freedom to find solutions and the funding to put them into practice.
Last year, I set out with four colleagues—all of them fishermen or members of fishing families—to canvass fishermen across Alaska, the West Coast, and New England about what those crucial supports could look like and how they can be designed to expand rather than limit the horizons of opportunity for our already-burdened industry.
Our thoughtful and wide-ranging conversations with almost 150 vessel owners probed fishermen’s knowledge and comfort regarding a range of energy efficiency measures and low-carbon fuel alternatives. We also asked fishermen to envision specific ways that existing federal and state programs (like the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act, Rural Energy for America Program, and California’s Carl Moyer program) could be enhanced or complemented by new programs to support a more complete range of options for fishermen seeking to reduce fossil fuel use on their vessels.
November 14, 2024 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:
In September 2024, my colleague Shannon Meseck and I took a road trip up north to Canada, to visit a research lab in St. Andrews, New Brunswick. The St. Andrews Biological Station is a part of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the Canadian equivalent to NOAA Fisheries. Though the oldest of Canada’s Atlantic research facilities, the lab features state-of-the-art seawater systems with capacity to do climate and aquatic research.
This project was a transboundary collaboration with climate scientist Helen Gurney-Smith to study climate change stressors on Atlantic sea scallop larvae. It was funded by the NOAA Ocean Acidification Program. The larval period, typically the first 3 weeks of a sea scallop’s life, is particularly challenging for bivalve shellfish because they are planktonic, or free-floating in the water column. During this period, larvae are subject to heavy predation and are transported through ocean currents. The water they are exposed to is constantly changing with environmental conditions, and pulses of warm and/or low pH water are becoming more common with climate change.
One way we can test how larvae respond to changes in environmental conditions is by measuring their respiration rate. As with all animals, sea scallops breathe oxygen and release carbon dioxide. The oxygen they breathe is dissolved in seawater, and we can measure the drop in the oxygen concentration of that water over time with specialized equipment known as respiration chambers. Changes in respiration rate indicate physiological stress. We hypothesized that respiration rate may change when sea scallop larvae are exposed to non-ideal seawater conditions.
October 30, 2024 — A chance discovery during routine research has revealed that Japanese sardines, previously thought to live only in the Asian North Pacific, have crossed into the American Pacific off the U.S. West Coast.
“It was a total shock,” NOAA research scientist Gary Long said of the finding.
October 29, 2024 — The following was released by the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council:
The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council is soliciting services to support its Climate Change and Communities Program (CCCP). Contractors and services are required to carry out projects as supported through NOAA’s Inflation Reduction Act funding. Contract services will support the Contractual Service Items below (See full Request for Proposals for additional details):
1. American Samoa CCCP coordinator to provide oversight and coordination of all Council CCCP projects and activities occurring in American Samoa in support of the four priority areas.
2. Mariana Islands CCCP coordinator to provide oversight and coordination of all Council CCCP projects and activities occurring in the Mariana Islands in support of the four priority areas.
3. Scenario Planning coordinator(s) and facilitator(s) for:
4. Contractor(s) to conduct regulatory reviews of the Council’s Fishery Ecosystem Plans (FEPs) and management regimes for U.S. Pacific Island fishery resources – American Samoa Archipelago FEP; Mariana Archipelago FEP; Hawaii Archipelago FEP; Pelagic FEP and Pacific Pelagic Remote Island Areas FEP.
5. Contractor(s) to review and update protected species-related fishery management processes to ensure flexibility and adaptability to climate impacts and ecosystem drivers. Contract services are sought to:
6. Community Engagement and Capacity-Building coordinator(s) to oversee efforts to engage Pacific Island communities to identify emerging impacts of climate change on fishing and underserved communities and to oversee capacity-building efforts as supported through the CCCP.
Interested persons or entities should submit one (1) proposal clearly identifying to which of the Contractual Service Items above they are applying. Proposals may target any single service item or combination thereof on a time and materials basis. Applicants shall include a timeline for completion of each service item project included in the proposal, with a maximum of two years to provide all contract deliverables.
CONTRACT PERIOD: The contract is expected to begin in January 2025 and end in December 2026.
HOW TO APPLY: Proposal submissions should include the following items (maximum 10 pages; 8.5x11inch paper; 12 point font; single space): (a) Project Principal Name, Co-principals, Affiliation and Contact information (email address, phone, mailing address); (b) Statement clearly identifying which Contractual Service Item(s) is/are being applied for; (c) Statement addressing the qualifications and requirements as stated above and in the attached Appendices for Contractual Service Items 3-6; (d) Compensation rate on a time and materials basis, inclusive of all taxes and fees, for principals, co-principles and subcontractors; (e) list of sub-contractors and services to be provided; (f) travel matrix including cost for airfare, lodging, ground transportation and per diem; (g) a curriculum vitae or resume for project principals, co-principals and sub-contractors; and (h) list of other participants as appropriate.
Interested persons or entities should submit one (1) proposal clearly identifying to which of the six (6) Contractual Service Items above they are applying. Proposals may target any single service item or combination thereof on a time and materials basis. Applicants shall include a timeline for completion of each service item project included in the proposal, with a maximum of two years to provide all contract deliverables.
SUBMISSION DEADLINE: Proposals will be accepted until 5:00 p.m. November 22, 2024 (HST), or until a contractor is engaged, whichever occurs first. Proposals may be submitted by e-mail (attach materials in PDF) to info@wpcouncil.org or via regular mail to: Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, 1164 Bishop Street, Suite 1400, Honolulu, HI 96813.
October 23, 2024 — In a massive research project spanning five years and stretching the length of the Northeast seaboard, a Wellesley College professor is examining how various fishing communities can change their fishing habits in order to adapt to climate change.
Rebecca Selden, an assistant professor of biological sciences at Wellesley, is creating a “spatial sea map” designed to illustrate the adaptive styles of 266 fishing communities stretching across the East Coast from North Carolina to Maine. Her research, conducted with colleagues from four other institutions, was published on October 15 in ICES Journal of Marine Science.
Selden’s project is one of the first to provide detailed, high-resolution information about how individual communities could change their fishing patterns in response to climate change. Such community-level information is critical to understand which communities might be most vulnerable or resilient to changes in the distribution of species that they fish.
Climate change is changing the seascape in many ways, Selden notes. The water is changing—becoming more acidified, for example. Species are relocating in order to adapt to changing water temperatures. And the ocean is being used in new and different ways—for ocean-based wind turbines, for example.
“These changes can challenge fishing communities that rely on marine resources,” Selden says. “Many communities have diversified what they catch, or where they fish, to cope with changes in where fish are found.”