Saving Seafood

Trump administration walks back plan to cut ocean observation after legislative effort

June 18, 2026 — The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has walked back plans to dismantle a deep-ocean observation system after pushback from members of Congress.

The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) announced recently the administration was planning to dismantle the USD 368 million (EUR 321 million) Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI). The OOI consisted of multiple underwater monitoring arrays, which provide openly accessible data to oceanographers, researchers, educators, and the public and contributed to everything from storm forecasting to fishery health.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

The ‘Super’ El Niño Has Arrived. Here’s How It Might Affect the World’s Weather and Economy

June 17, 2026 —  The forecasted El Niño—a mysterious but well-documented climate phenomenon—has officially begun, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced on June 11. Meteorologists expect it to evolve into one of the most powerful ones on record, and the event will likely bring about extreme weather worldwide and consequently affect the economy.

“We need to prepare for a potentially strong El Niño event, which will exacerbate drought and heavy rainfall and increase the risk of heatwaves both on land and in the ocean,” says Celeste Saulo, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization, in a statement.

Here’s what you need to know about the El Niño and what it might do in the coming months.

What is El Niño?

El Niño is a naturally occurring climate pattern characterized by warmer-than-average surface water temperatures in the Pacific Ocean’s tropical region, near the equator. In the United States, the events are usually declared when the temperature rises by more than 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit for at least five consecutive seasons, each lasting three months.

The balmier water leads to changes in the air pressure. That, in turn, causes trade winds that blow westward to weaken, allowing warmer water to spread farther east than normal and pool near northwestern South America.

Read the full article the Smithsonian Magazine

7 Ways El Niño and Large Marine Heatwave Could Affect West Coast Marine Species

June 15, 2026 — A large marine heatwave has bathed parts of the West Coast in very warm ocean waters over the past year, breaking temperature records in the Pacific. NOAA has also announced that El Niño has developed in the tropical Pacific and is predicted to intensify to a moderate or strong level this fall. El Niño represents another form of marine warming , though with different drivers and influences. The prolonged period of high temperatures could affect fisheries and marine life in the California Current that have already been buffeted by shifting ocean conditions over the last decade.

One factor may help dampen the impacts, though: The same strong upwelling of cool water along the coast that fuels the West Coast ecosystem with nutrients could help keep some warmer waters at bay, as happened in 2025.

We have seen these back-to-back heat events before. About a decade ago, a major marine heatwave known as “The Blob” began raising ocean temperatures off the West Coast, peaking in 2015. One of the strongest El Niños on record followed in 2015–2016, amplifying ocean warmth—as the current forecast predicts for the coming year. That was a worst-case scenario that drove changes around the world. The Pacific endured a record count of tropical cyclones and the Caribbean Sea and parts of Africa experienced severe droughts. That situation was more extreme than now, with the Blob lasting longer and affecting the entire West Coast compared to the smaller recent marine heatwave. However, research and observations during that unprecedented climatic pileup suggest the kind of changes we may see in the coming months along the West Coast. Though these changes are centered in the Pacific, they have far-reaching impacts.

Here are some of the ways warming water can impact marine life, coastal communities, and economies.

1. Shifting Fisheries

Research found that some commercial West Coast species, such as market squid, may be sensitive to these long-term and episodic changes in ocean temperatures. The shift of market squid north along the West Coast in response to warming from the Blob and subsequent El Niño created new fishing opportunities in Oregon and Washington during the Blob that remained afterward. Squid landings in Oregon rose from none in 2015 to nearly 3 million pounds worth more than $1 million in 2016 and continued to grow rapidly through 2020. This provided new opportunities for purse seine vessels whose opportunities in other fisheries affected by the Blob—such as sardine, Alaska herring, and Alaska salmon—had dwindled. Seafood processors in Oregon scaled up to handle more squid, and Oregon fisheries managers developed their first regulations for the emerging squid fishery. Market squid had been the largest commercial fishery by volume in California, but California landings dropped by more than half from 2014 to 2015. They remain substantially lower than they were prior to the Blob and El Niño.

Meanwhile, tropical species such as whale sharks and hammerhead sharks made northerly appearances off Southern California while fishing vessels caught albacore tuna much closer to shore as far north as Washington. Fishing boats caught a skipjack tuna off the Copper River in Alaska, and surveys turned up an ocean sunfish and thresher shark off southeast Alaska. Pacific bluefin tuna increased in number and size in U.S. waters, exciting recreational anglers and generating new revenue for the charter fleet. This year, Southern California anglers have begun catching dorado and yellowfin tuna much earlier in the year than usual, suggesting these northerly shifts may have begun.

2. Hungry California Sea Lion Pups

Higher sea surface temperatures also affect other fish species, including sardines and anchovy. These fish are high-energy staple foods for California sea lions that breed in Southern California’s Channel Islands, but declined with warming ocean temperatures. Sea lions turned to lower quality forage species such as rockfish and squid. Nursing sea lion mothers had to travel farther to find the food their pups needed, forcing pups to fast for longer periods at the rookery. The weight of sea lion pups declined, according to long-term studies in the Channel Islands . In El Niño years, many hungry pups set off on their own in search of food before their usual weaning time. In 2013–2016, as many as 4,000 pups arrived on California beaches, skinny and hungry. These extreme events taxed rehabilitation facilities and prompted NOAA Fisheries to declare an Unusual Mortality Event for the species. Researchers later estimated that an increase of 1 degree Celsius in sea surface temperatures could reduce the growth rate of the sea lion population to zero. A 2-degree rise would reduce the population size by about 7 percent.

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries

El Niño is back, and ocean temperatures are already near record highs – that can spell disaster for fish and corals

June 15, 2026. — It’s official: El Niño is back. By late fall 2026, forecast models give a 2-in-3 chance of a strong-to-very strong El Niño affecting the weather, climate and ocean temperatures across the planet.

El Niño is the climate system’s biggest player and one side of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO. It’s the heads to La Niña’s tails.

During El Niño, a swath of ocean stretching 6,000 miles (about 10,000 kilometers) westward off the coast of Ecuador warms for months on end, typically by 2 to 4 degrees Fahrenheit (about 1 to 2 degrees Celsius). A few degrees may not seem like much, but in that part of the world, it’s more than enough to completely reorganize wind, rainfall and temperature patterns all over the planet.

I’m a climate scientist who studies the oceans. With an El Niño expected to strengthen through the summer and fall, water temperatures will heat up even more. It’s time to start preparing.

How does El Niño affect the planet?

No two El Niño events are exactly alike, though we’ve seen enough of them that forecasters have a pretty good idea of what’s likely to happen.

People tend to focus on El Niño’s impact on land, justifiably. The warm water affects air currents that leave areas wetter or drier than usual. It can ramp up storms in some areas, like the southern U.S., while tending to tamp down Atlantic hurricane activity.

El Niño can also wreak havoc on the many marine ecosystems that support the world’s fishing industries, including coral reefs and seagrass meadows.

Specifically, El Niño tends to trigger intense and widespread periods of extreme ocean warming known as marine heat waves.

Global ocean temperatures are already near record highs, so El Niño-induced marine heat waves could push many sensitive fisheries to a breaking point.

Read the full article at the Conversation

El Niño is officially here, and this one could be a doozy

June 12, 2026 — Prepare for intense heat, drought and some flooding — it’s officially El Niño season, the National Weather Service announced Thursday.

This El Niño event could be on par with some of the strongest documented in the past, according to models from the NWS.

“There is a 63% chance that we’re looking at a very strong El Niño during the November to January time period that could rank amongst the largest El Niño events in the historical record,” Ariel Cohen, a meteorologist for the NWS in Los Angeles, said at a news conference held by the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, California. “We’re already seeing those warm temperatures lining up.”

El Niño is a natural climate pattern that causes warm surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean. It’s associated with higher average global temperatures, so its effects exacerbate warming from climate change. The pattern is linked to fewer hurricanes in the Atlantic and more in the Pacific.

In the U.S., El Niño’s influence is most obvious in the winter, as it shifts the typical flow of the jet stream, the ribbon of air that encircles the Northern Hemisphere and drives weather patterns. The pattern typically pushes the jet stream south.

In the Pacific Northwest, that creates dry, warmer-than-usual conditions in winter, which is a concern this year because much of the region is already mired in drought after receiving middling snow. In Southern states, the trend typically brings unusually wet weather in the winter, which could prime the region for flooding.

El Niño can also drive powerful marine heat waves and scramble sea life, causing mass die-offs and bringing unusual tropical fish to coastal waters.

Read the full article at NBC News

Feds will abruptly dismantle system monitoring climate change, oceans

June 11, 2026 –The National Science Foundation has begun dismantling a major ocean monitoring network more than a decade earlier than planned.

Some scientists say it will be a “tragic” loss of crucial information about the world’s warming oceans.

The dismantling will end most of the monitoring in one of the nation’s most advanced, continuous observing systems less than halfway through its intended 25-year lifespan. Researchers warn that the loss of measurements will limit efforts to better understand ocean phenomena, including marine heat waves, hurricanes, fisheries and long-term shifts in climate, even as the oceans reach record-warm temperatures.

The Science Foundation-funded Ocean Observatories Initiative oversees web-like arrays of instruments and sensors from the surface to the sea floor in remote ocean regions. The foundation will remove four of its last five arrays by the end of summer 2027, according to a statement by Jim Edson, a principal investigator for the initiative and senior scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Read the full article at USA TODAY

A new job for sharks: Oceanographers improving climate forecasts

June 9, 2026 — A mighty predator of the sea, capable of traveling vast distances and diving thousands of feet deep, may become a valuable tool in helping forecast climate change.

In a new study, University of Miami Rosenstiel School researchers found that sensors usually attached to sharks to investigate their behavior can also allow scientists to track temperature changes in parts of the oceans often inaccessible to satellites and drifters pulled by currents. Using mako and blue sharks, among the most nomadic of sharks, scientists were able to fill in data gaps and improve some forecasts by as much as 40%.

”What we ended up seeing is what we’re calling model improvements in shallow areas, in the Slope Sea [in the Northwest Atlantic] and along the continental shelf,” said Laura McDonnell, lead author and now a researcher at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Read the full article at WLRN

Loss of ocean monitoring could create fisheries blind spot

June 8, 2026 — The Alaska Marine Community Coalition is raising concerns over plans to dismantle much of the federal Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI), arguing that the loss of long-term ocean monitoring could reduce critical information used to understand changing conditions in Alaska’s fisheries.

In a recent statement, the coalition said the National Science Foundation plans to remove in-water equipment from four of the five OOI sites over the next 15 months, including Ocean Station Papa in the Gulf of Alaska, located roughly 620 miles offshore. The network has collected continuous oceanographic data since 2016, while Station Papa itself has served as one of the North Pacific’s longest-running ocean monitoring locations.

The coalition said the station provides information on deep-water temperatures, ocean chemistry, currents and biological conditions that help scientists track changes affecting species including salmon, halibut, crab and pollock.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Congress should heed the Pacific Ocean’s super El Niño warning

June 4, 2026 — Listen up, lawmakers: The Pacific Ocean is trying to send you a message about the federal budget.

About once every two to seven years, the Pacific trade winds weaken and water temperatures shift, causing profound impacts for the global climate. The phenomenon is called “El Niño.” The latest data from the world’s largest ocean are telling us that a “super El Niño: will likely develop this year, possibly among the most powerful such events ever recorded.

The possibility of a strong El Niño should serve as a wake-up call to Congress. Lawmakers are now considering the Trump administration’s proposed budget cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — the agency known by the acronym NOAA (pronounced “Noah”), which serves as America’s eyes and ears on the world of weather.

If lawmakers choose to hollow out and treat this agency as a set of separable parts, the consequences for American communities and for the national economy will be dire.

Lawmakers in Washington must fully fund the agency’s work to monitor global weather patterns and keep Americans informed. By doing so, they will protect us all.

Read the full article at The Hill

In Kachemak Bay, Kotzebue and beyond, Alaskans are on the lookout for harmful algae blooms

June 3, 2026 — Algae is vital to a healthy marine system, and most of the hundreds of varieties in Alaska’s waters are beneficial or benign.

But the handful that are harmful are, like other algae, proliferating in warmer conditions and releasing or threatening to release toxins that can sicken people and wildlife and, in the worst cases, cause deaths.

The best-known type of algae that poses risks to people, mammals and birds in Alaska is called Alexandrium. The toxins it produces cause paralytic shellfish poisoning; they block the delivery of sodium to cells, thus interfering with or shutting down nerves essential to bodily functions.

The most potent Alexandrium toxin is saxitoxin, but there are related toxins produced by the same algae called gonyautoxins, or GTX. Some GTX varieties, including one detected in tomcod harvested in December by Nome-Beltz High School students in a yearslong science project, are nearly as toxic as saxitoxin. For simplicity’s sake, testing for paralytic toxins often lumps measurements of saxitoxin and GTX compounds together as “saxitoxin equivalent,” said Thomas Farrugia, coordinator of the Alaska Harmful Algal Bloom network.

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media