Saving Seafood

‘Unprecedented’ ocean heat wave could linger through fall

June 22, 2023 — An intense marine heat wave that has fueled record-warm sea surface temperatures in the world’s oceans in recent months could linger well into the fall, according to an experimental forecast produced by scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Researchers with the agency’s Physical Sciences Laboratory said unusually warm conditions in the North Atlantic are all but certain to last all summer, with an up to 90% chance that the marine heat wave will persist through November.

Members of the research team are set to issue an outlook online later this week that unveils the new forecast and discusses its implications.

Dillon Amaya, a research scientist at NOAA’s Physical Sciences Laboratory, called the situation in the North Atlantic “unprecedented,” adding that researchers have been trying to understand what is driving the current warm spell and its potential consequences.

Read the full article at NBC News

‘Nothing like this has ever happened before’: The world’s oceans are at record-high temps

June 20, 2023 — Ocean surface temperatures vaulted to unprecedented levels this spring, alarming scientists and prompting predictions of increased extreme weather this year, including from hurricanes.

While ocean temperatures have been rising for at least 70 years, the new measurements taken from a network of satellites, ships, and buoys around the globe show an unexpected spike that began in March and appears to still be climbing.

“It’s just totally shocking, because it is so far out of the realm of what has been observed in the records,” said Brian McNoldy, a hurricane and climate expert at the University of Miami. “Nothing like this has ever happened before.”

Read the full article at Boston Globe

US lawmakers want to establish USDA Office of Aquaculture

June 20, 2023 — U.S. representatives in Congress have introduced legislation to create an office of aquaculture within the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“Shellfish harvesters and seaweed farmers play an essential role in our food supply, but historically they haven’t received the support they need to reach their full potential,” U.S.Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Oregon) said, adding that a USDA aquaculture program office “will help shellfish harvesters and seaweed farmers grow their small businesses while expanding blue carbon ecosystems that help address the climate crisis.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Highest ocean temperatures ever recorded for the month of May, NOAA says

June 16, 2023 — Scientists have gathered further evidence that ocean waters are continuing to warm along with the rest of the planet.

Ocean temperatures reached record-breaking highs for the month of May, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced during its monthly climate call on Thursday.

Four main factors are contributing to such historic warming of global sea surface temperatures: human-induced climate change, a developing El Nino event, effects from the 2022 Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano eruption and a new shipping emissions policy aimed at reducing air pollution, said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Some regions are experiencing temperatures up to 7 degrees higher than average for this time of year. In Cabo Verde Island, where hurricanes typically form, the water is typically 75 degrees Fahrenheit but is currently measuring at 82.4 degrees.

Read the full article at ABC News

States and clean energy: 3 issues to watch

June 16, 2023 — Statehouses across the country are enacting new energy laws this year, tackling issues that will directly affect President Joe Biden’s climate agenda even as Congress stands divided.

New laws signed in recent months and proposals still under consideration may affect the growth trajectory of low-carbon technologies including offshore wind and rooftop solar. In many cases, state plans may evolve over time along with national programs.

For emerging technologies like hydrogen, state lawmakers are trying to manage how the Biden administration’s ambitions will play out locally. Democrats have largely tried to implement Biden’s big-picture vision for promoting those technologies, while Republicans have sought to apply the brakes in some cases.

The state action is happening during an important period of implementation for last year’s Inflation Reduction Act and the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law.

“We expected states to look into follow-on” laws that would respond to policies contained in the Inflation Reduction Act, said Frank Wolak, CEO of the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Energy Association.

More laws of that kind are likely to emerge in additional state legislatures, he added. “I expect there’ll be others interested.”

The Treasury Department has recently rolled out guidance on how tax credits from the IRA could be claimed for rooftop solar projects and for U.S.-made offshore wind parts. And the Department of Energy is slated to award up to $7 billion of infrastructure funds for the first hubs of low-carbon hydrogen production, storage, transport and consumption this fall, for instance.

Both parties are angling to bring billions of dollars in infrastructure law funds to their states to support the first large demonstrations of low-carbon hydrogen. They include Republicans in Mississippi and North Dakota as well as Democrats in Hawaii and Washington.

Read the full article at E&E News

Officially bogus: Bottom trawling does not release as much carbon as airline travel

June 15, 2023 — Remember the headlines that claimed bottom trawling released as much carbon as all of air travel? We thought those claims were probably bogus when first reported, but Hiddink et al. 2023, a response paper published May 2023, now makes those claims Officially Bogus.

The original headlines came from Sala et al. 2021, a paper published in Nature that garnered more media coverage than any marine science paper of the past decade. We’ve covered the science and follow-ups over the last few years, but here’s a quick summary:

Sala et al. 2021 advocated for increasing the number of marine protected areas (MPAs) that restrict fishing. The paper used three different models that claimed benefits from MPAs:

  1. Food security – MPAs would increase food availability via more abundant fisheries.
  2. Biodiversity – MPAs would enhance ocean biodiversity.

Carbon/climate change – claimed that bottom trawling released as much carbon as all air travel, thus selling MPAs as a climate change solution via carbon sequestration. The paper suggested selling carbon credits from MPAs to fund the creation of more MPAs.

These three claims have quickly fallen apart, however. The original food security model was retracted, and the modified one by Sala et al. 2021 had similar issues. A response published last year points out that the biodiversity and carbon claims were based on the assumption that fishing disappears rather than being displaced. And now, Hiddink et al. 2023 demonstrates that the carbon model overestimated carbon benefits by 2-3 orders of magnitude, i.e., 100-1000 times.

Hiddink et al. 2023 notes two main reasons why the model in Sala et al. 2021 misfired:

  1. The fundamental assumptions of the carbon cycle were incorrect.
  2. The validation of those assumptions was also incorrect.

Here, we explain the carbon cycle in ocean sediment and discuss the potential for bottom trawling to contribute to carbon emissions. We also break down the carbon model from Sala et al. 2021 and show why it was incorrect based on Hiddink et al. 2023’s analysis.

Read the full article at Sustainable Fisheries

El Nino is bad news for salmon and steelhead

June 15, 2023 — The little troublemaker is back.

It’s bad-but-expected news for salmon and steelhead runs up and down the West Coast, including those that return to the Snake and Columbia rivers.

The NOAA Climate Prediction Center said last week that El Niño conditions are now present off the coast of South America, and they can be expected to gather strength by this winter.

According to a news release from the agency, the weather phenomenon is identified by the accumulation of warmer-than-normal sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean west of South America near the equator.

El Niño (little boy in Spanish) influences global weather patterns.

“Depending on its strength, El Niño can cause a range of impacts, such as increasing the risk of heavy rainfall and droughts in certain locations around the world,” said Michelle L’Heureux, climate scientist at the Climate Prediction Center, in the news release.

Read the full article at the Spokesman Review

Biden administration announces $2.6 billion toward coastal climate resilience

June 6, 2023 — The Commerce Department has announced it will put $2.6 billion toward coastal climate resilience in funds from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

The funds, announced on a Monday call with the press, will include about $400 million for tribal communities in support of habitat restoration, fish hatcheries and Pacific salmon, and those in the direct path of climate change.

Another $349 million will go specifically to climate resilience in fisheries, while another $60 million will go toward climate-resilience job placement and training.

Read the full at The Hill

New Jersey State Senator Michael Testa claims ENGO hypocrisy on offshore wind and whales

May 19, 2023 — The following transcript is excerpted from an interview by New Jersey State Senator Michael Testa on Fox & Friends:

Fox & Friends: GOP lawmakers in New Jersey want an immediate stop to offshore wind projects over growing concern about a spike in whale deaths. Since December alone, 32 dead whales have washed up on beaches along the East Coast. Republican state senators are asking for a 30 to 60 day pause on construction to see if it helps. Michael Testa is one of them and he joins us now.

So who exactly are the groups or the people who would be opposing a 30 to 60 day, very sensible pause to see what’s going on with the whales?

Sen. Testa: Well, it seems to be Ørsted, who’s the company that wants to have the wind farms, as well as the Sierra Club and Greenpeace, which makes absolutely no sense to me because I always thought that those were the groups that were there to protect the whales and to create bumper stickers that say ‘save the whales.’ And I think that they’re being completely intellectually disingenuous here. We know that if this were an exploration for offshore oil drilling, that if one whale carcass were to wash up on one of New Jersey’s shores, they would be surrounding that carcass holding hands with, you know, tears streaming down their face, singing Kumbaya.

Fox & Friends: What is their explanation for not wanting to see an environmental impact on whales?

Sen. Testa: Well, their explanation is the reason that the whales and dolphins are washing up on our shores in record numbers is due to climate change. That’s why we need to rush to erect these massive wind farms, which, you know, quite frankly, a lot of people have now testified and believe are contributing to whales washing up on our shores in record numbers. But it’s always their cry. This is their mantra. This is climate change. And if you ever question their green energy agenda, you’re labelled a science denier, a climate change denier.

We also have to really question what the environmental impact is going to be to our commercial fishing industry as well as our recreational fishing industry and look, Cape May County, Atlantic County, Ocean County and Monmouth County, tourism is the lifeblood of their summer economy.What are these wind farms going to do if whales and dolphins continue to wash up on our shores?

We also don’t know what the erection of these massive wind farms [is] going to do to our ocean floor and what type of environmental long term environmental impact that is going to have on our oyster business, scallop business.

Watch the full interview here

Redfish, bluefish, no fish: Climate change threatens traditional fishing waters

May 17, 2023 — The chances of climate change causing significant disruption to saltwater fisheries are pretty high, according to a NOAA Fisheries climate vulnerability assessment that’s on its way to finalization.

All of the species examined, with the exception of the Atlantic sturgeon, are at a very high level of exposure to elements of climate change and many have a high sensitivity to those changes, like the gag grouper, goliath grouper, horseshoe crab, and each of the brown, pink and white shrimp species.

Red snapper, notably, has a moderate sensitivity.

“This is the most significant thing — these are the potential for species distributions to change by low, moderate, high and very high (probabilities),” said Roger Pugliese, a habitat and ecosystem scientist with the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council (SAFMC).

He presented at the SAFMC Habitat Protection and Ecosystem-Based Management Advisory Panel (AP) meetings this week.

Read the full article at Florida Politics