Saving Seafood

OREGON: Significant marine heatwave brewing off Oregon coast

August 8, 2023 — Oceans around the world are hotter than ever before in the record-keeping era – and those high temps have now reached the Pacific Northwest.

Colin McCarthy, an atmospheric scientist and extreme weather influencer tweeted that “[o]ne of the most intense marine heatwaves on Earth has developed off the West Coast of the US, with water temperatures peaking nearly 5°C (9°F) above normal.”

The marine heatwave off the coasts of Oregon and Washington has reached “extreme” levels, an event that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) ranks a Category 4 on a scale of 5.

Average ocean temperatures around the world reached 70 degrees in spring of 2023, the highest ever recorded.

In July, the Associated Press reported that sea surface temperatures rose above 100 degrees Fahrenheit at a spot off Florida’s southern tip.

Warming oceans cause stronger storms, rising sea levels and the loss of coral reefs and other marine life, according to according to the U.S. National Centers for Environmental Information as reported by the AP.

Read the full article at Oregon Live

Global seafood industry faces growing risks from human activity

August 8, 2023 — The global seafood industry is not adapting fast enough to the bevy of threats it faces due to climate change, a Blue Food Assessment study has found.

Climate change is the biggest problem barreling down on the industry, but pollution and overfishing also loom large, according to “Vulnerability of Blue Foods to Human-induced Environmental Change,” published 26 June in Nature Sustainability. It is one of seven scientific papers being authored by the Blue Food Assessment, an effort led by Stanford University’s Center for Ocean Solutions and Center on Food Security and the Environment; the Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University; and EAT, a nonprofit dedicated to food-system transformation, pushing to better understand the role of so-called “blue foods” in global food systems.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

The Ocean’s Dire Message

August 4, 2023 — Oceans cover more than 70 percent of the Earth’s surface, and yet the vast majority have not been mapped or explored.

But there are two things we can say with certainty: Oceans are the hottest they have been in recorded history, by a wide margin. And man-made climate change is to blame.

From the North Atlantic to Florida to Antarctica, record water temperatures are forcing scientists to grapple with how climate change is warming the oceans, often in unpredictable and extreme ways, with implications for the entire planet. In today’s newsletter we’ll take a deep dive into what’s happening, with help from our colleagues.

Read the full release at The New York Times

Here’s how hot and extreme the summer has been, and it’s only halfway over

August 1, 2023 — At about summer’s halfway point, the record-breaking heat and weather extremes are both unprecedented and unsurprising, hellish yet boring in some ways, scientists say.

Killer heat. Deadly floods. Smoke from wildfires that chokes.

And there’s no relief in sight.

Expect a hotter than normal August and September, American and European forecast centers predict.

“We are seeing unprecedented changes all over the world,” said NASA climate scientist Gavin Schmidt. “The heat waves that we’re seeing in the U.S. and in Europe, in China are demolishing records left, right and center. This is not a surprise.”

Imperial College of London climate scientist Friederike Otto said examining what’s causing heat waves is “boring” in a way since it keeps happening. Yet she added that it matters “because it shows again just how much climate change plays a role in what we are currently experiencing.”

“This story, these impacts, are going to continue,” Schmidt said. “We’re going to be seeing this pretty much this year and into next year” with a natural El Nino warming of the Pacific adding to the overwhelming influence of human-caused climate change largely from the burning of coal, oil and gas.

Here’s a rundown of the summer of Earth’s discontent.

RECORD-SHATTERING HEAT

Globally, June this year was the hottest June on record — and scientists say July has been so hot that even before the month was over they could say it was the hottest month on record. But it’s individual places where people live that the heat has stuck around and killed.

Read the full article at ABC News

The world’s oceans are off-the-charts warm — and the worst could be yet to come

July 31, 2023 — Scientists are running out of extreme adjectives to describe the state of the world’s oceans.

Global sea surface temperatures are spiking off the charts. The North Atlantic Ocean, in particular, has for months been engulfed in what scientists have said is an “unprecedented” marine heat wave. The Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean basin have also been unusually warm. The waters off the coast of Florida topped 100 degrees F multiple times this week — temperatures comparable to a hot tub.

What’s more, some scientists say the worst may be yet to come.

“We’re not even at the height of the summer,” said Svenja Ryan, a physical oceanographer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. “Typically, the ocean continues to warm until September, so I think certainly we can expect this heat wave to last into the fall.”

This month, parts of the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico were more than 5 degrees F warmer than normal. In recent days, a patch of the North Atlantic off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada — a region normally kept relatively cool by the Labrador Current — was an astounding 9 degrees F warmer than usual, according to Frédéric Cyr, a research scientist at Fisheries and Oceans Canada, a department of the Canadian government that oversees marine science and policy and manages the country’s fisheries.

Read the full article at NBC News

Should commercial fishing vessels go electric?

July 30, 2023 — While many of the sustainability initiatives for the commercial fishing industry are set to make a positive impact on the environment in the long run, going green is sometimes seen as just another cost by fishermen today. That’s why fishermen need to be at the helm, as their perspective is essential to consider when it comes to how safe, reliable, and affordable next-generation propulsion solutions will be developed. Especially considering the need to get ahead of requirements and mandates that could one day force some of these changes.

Those regulatory changes are something that Noah Oppenheim is especially focused on. The principal and founder of Homarus Strategies, his firm specializes in fisheries policy at all scales and levels of governance, ocean renewable energy issues, and navigating broad environmental regulatory frameworks.

Providing the financial and regulatory support for a smooth and cost-effective energy transition means approaching challenges with electrification and going green in terms of practicality, safety, and careful industry-led planning. A few organizations across the country that have been organizing efforts around fuel efficiency, emission reduction, and vessel electrification before it becomes a mandate for U.S. commercial fishing operations, from Alaska to Massachusetts to Maine.

“The fishing industry has a compelling story to tell, and vessels have primarily used diesel for generations,” Oppenheim said. “Though it is a very effective liquid fuel for reliable marine propulsion and companies will further investigate improving it, there is a need for this industry to get ahead of mandates. There are clear examples of when the fishing industry has had to or has been forced into requirements or to make changes that have not been safe, reliable, or cost effective and the results of this have weighed heavily.”

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

White House seeks input on National Strategy for a Sustainable Ocean Economy

July 27, 2023 — The Biden administration is looking for input on a new National Strategy for a Sustainable Ocean Economy, which will build on the Ocean Climate Action Plan released in March.

According to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), the national strategy will guide how the federal government “can best advance sustainable management of ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes resources and ecosystems of the United States.” While the U.S. marine economy makes up nearly two percent of national gross domestic product, America’s ocean resources are under threat, the government claims.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Ocean currents vital for distributing heat could collapse by midcentury, study says

July 27, 2023 — A system of ocean currents that transports heat northward across the North Atlantic could collapse by mid-century, according to a new study, and scientists have said before that such a collapse could cause catastrophic sea-level rise and extreme weather across the globe.

In recent decades, researchers have both raised and downplayed the specter of Atlantic current collapse. It even prompted a movie that strayed far from the science. Two years ago the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said any such catastrophe is unlikely this century. But the new study published in Nature Communications suggests it might not be as far away and unlikely as mainstream science says.

The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation is a vital system of ocean currents that circulates water throughout the Atlantic Ocean, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It’s a lengthy process, taking an estimated 1,000 years to complete, but has slowed even more since the mid-1900s.

Read the full article at the Associated Press

ALASKA: Why sockeye flourish and chinook fail in Alaska’s changing climate

July 27, 2023 — University of Washington ecologist Daniel Schindler is at the mouth of a salmon stream at Lake Nerka, in Southwest Alaska. It’s roiling with fish.

“They sort of pile up in balls of thousands of fish for a couple of weeks. I think that’s when they’re doing their final maturation,” he said of the sockeye mob. “They’re jostling with each other and splashing, occasionally jumping.”

Schindler is in his 27th year of field work, studying Bristol Bay sockeye. This year is on par with the sockeye abundance Bristol Bay has seen in the last decade, he said, which is far higher than the historical average.

The unlikely hero of this story of plenty: Climate change.

“We tend to think of climate warming is bad news for wild animals,” he said. “But for sockeye Bristol Bay warming has been good news.”

For other salmon, climate change is a villain.

Chinook – or king – salmon are in terrible decline all over the state, and especially dire on the Yukon River. Meanwhile, sockeye – or reds – are having another banner year in Bristol Bay, and everywhere.  Scientists say they don’t know exactly why one salmon species is doing so well while the other is in crisis, but some clues are coming into sharper focus.

One key difference, Schindler said, is what kind of river habit each species needs.

Sockeye use lakes as their nurseries. Since the 1980s the water in those lakes has warmed significantly. The warmth stimulates plankton to reproduce more, and young sockeye eat plankton. Fifty years ago, Schindler said, a lot of sockeye spent two years in Lake Nerka before heading out to sea.

“And now they grow so fast that nearly all of them leave after a single year in freshwater, which is a reflection of the fact that the freshwater systems have become more productive,” he said.

Read the full article at Alaska Public Media