Climate & Fisheries News
Most people associate NASA with space shuttles, rovers and telescopes. But now it's putting into orbit satellites and powerful radars with the mission of collecting data back here on the surface of the planet. This data could give us unprecedented understanding of the impacts of climate change.
LINK (via CBS NEWS)
A comprehensive modeling study indicates the extent to which climate change threatens marine ecosystems and their biodiversity. According to the study, the core habitats of a large proportion of marine species could not only shift poleward, but also shrink significantly by the end of the century. In addition, currently, continuous habitats around the equator may be disrupted.
LINK (via Phys Org)
Mark Kenyon on marrying nature-based climate solutions with climate mitigation.
As a hunter or angler in the 2020s, it’s becoming increasingly hard to head afield and not notice the impacts of the changing climate. The question of whether this climate change thing is an overblown political hoax has passed. The idea that it’s a hypothetical crisis coming far in the future now seems quaint.
LINK (via MEATEATER)
NOAA Fisheries has published its Marine Recreational Information Program Implementation Plan, which identifies its recreational fishing data collection program priorities for the fiscal year 2023. Priorities include examining current survey designs to see where improvements can be made, implementing plans to transition to new and improved survey methods, and supporting regional data collection priorities.
The Agencies Priorities Include:
Effective Implementation of New, Improved Survey Methods
Redesign of the Large Pelagics Survey
Support for Regional Priorities
Commitment to Continuous Improvement
You can dive into all the details HERE
Exxon scientists predicted in the 1970s and 1980s that climate change was coming. A new study has made clear that Exxon’s scientists were uncannily accurate in predicting an upward curve of global temperatures and carbon dioxide emissions that is close to matching what actually occurred as the world heated up at a pace not seen in millions of years.
LINK (via The Guardian)
Scientists reported that the coldest and highest parts of the Greenland ice sheet, nearly two miles above sea level in many locations, are warming rapidly and showing unprecedented changes in at least a millennium.
The work also found that compared with the 20th century as a whole, this part of Greenland, the enormous north-central region, is now 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer and that the rate of melting and water loss from the ice sheet — which raises sea levels — has increased in tandem with these changes.
LINK (via The Washington Post)
In the headwaters of the Colorado River, drought has taken a major toll over more than two decades. Rising temperatures have intensified drought conditions, affecting the flow of a river that supplies 40 million people.
Scientists have reported that the amount of excess heat buried in the planet’s oceans, a strong marker of climate change, reached a record high in 2022, reflecting more stored heat energy than in any year since reliable measurements were available in the late 1950s.
That eclipsed the ocean heat record set in 2021, which eclipsed the record set in 2020 and the one set in 2019. And it helps to explain a seemingly ever-escalating pattern of extreme weather events of late, many of which are drawing extra fuel from the energy they pull from the oceans.
LINK (via The Washington Post)
The Climate, Ecosystems, and Fisheries Initiative is a cross-NOAA effort to build the nationwide, operational ocean modeling and decision support system needed to reduce impacts, increase resilience, and help adapt to changing ocean conditions. The system will provide decision makers with the actionable information and capacity they need to prepare for and respond to changing conditions today, next year, and for decades to come.
LINK (via NOAA Fisheries)
Scientists are already forecasting the loss of fish biomass due to warming water. But can we measure the effects on fish directly?
For some climate change impacts, the answer is yes. Increasingly, a window on the secret lives of fishes is opening up through the study of tiny, calcified formations inside fish skulls called otoliths – literally, “ear-stones.”
LINK (via The Conversation)
Dozens of once crystal-clear streams and rivers in Arctic Alaska are now running bright orange and cloudy—and in some cases, they may be becoming more acidic. This otherwise-undeveloped landscape now looks as if an industrial mine has been in operation there for decades, and scientists want to know why.
The prevailing hypothesis is that climate warming is causing underlying permafrost to degrade.
LINK (via High Country News)
A new report prepared for the state Department of Ecology suggests climate change will continue to alter Washington’s rivers, potentially making some watersheds uninhabitable for salmon and steelhead by the end of the century.
The report led by Washington State University researcher Jonathan Yoder and University of Washington researcher Crystal Raymond projects widespread increases in river flows in the winter, declines in the summer and rising stream temperatures.
LINK (via The Seattle Times)
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse’s 13th Annual Energy, Environment and Oceans Leaders Day (EEO Day) was a big success on Friday, Dec. 2, 2022.
The purpose of the workshop is to recognize Rhode Island environmental leaders and update the community on recent developments in the environment, energy, oceans and climate change arenas. News at the workshop included Senator Whitehouse announcing that he will likely be elected chairman of the Senate Budget Committee.
LINK (via Johnston Sunrise)
NOAA has partnered with McKenzie River Trust to increase natural floodplain connectivity along Finn Rock Reach in Oregon’s McKenzie River. The project is restoring important habitat for threatened Upper Willamette River Chinook salmon.
The restoration effort is funded in part through Community Project Funding or Congressionally Directed Spending. Through Community Project Funding, members of Congress request funding for specific projects in their communities. In 2022, the project received nearly $1.7 million in Community Project Funding through the NOAA Fisheries Office of Habitat Conservation.
LINK (via NOAA)
Greg Vespe, Executive Director of the Rhode Island Saltwater Anglers Association, the largest recreational fishing association in the Northeast, wrote a recent op-ed on why we need climate-ready fisheries now.
LINK (via East Bay RI)
How do sea-run fish connect ecosystems?
Scientists from the NOAA Fisheries science center, the Greater Atlantic Regional Office, and the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center developed a conceptual model to investigate the ecological role of sea-run fish and the connections they make among different ecosystems. The goal of this work is to improve ecosystem services delivery, ecosystem resilience, and the productivity of the sea-run fish community.
LINK (via NOAA Fisheries)
Alaska’s Department of Fish and Game has canceled the state’s winter snow crab season due to a dramatic plummet in the crustacean’s numbers. An estimated one billion crabs have mysteriously disappeared in two years, state officials said, marking a 90% drop in their population.
Scientists are investigating what caused the crabs to vanish, but climate change is a likely culprit.
The fate of the animals is "a canary in a coal mine for other species that need cold water," one researcher said.
LINK (Gizmodo)
Scientists report that after the 2015 seagrass die-off, algal blooms have become a more common occurrence in Florida Bay. What's going on with conditions in Florida Bay now, and how did Hurricane Ian impact the current lingering bloom?
Find out in this Friends of the Everglades Clean Water Conversation.
Since 2017, an unprecedented number of storms rated Category 4 or stronger have lashed the U.S. shoreline: Harvey, Irma, Maria, Michael, Laura, Ida and now Ian. They all qualify as “rapid intensification events,” when a storm’s wind speeds increase by at least 35 mph within 24 hours.
Climate scientists suspect the slow movement of storms like Ian also stems from global warming, giving them a greater opportunity to strengthen and destroy as long as day-to-day conditions remain ripe.
LINK (via The Washington Post)
Most anglers probably don’t realize that the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has a policy that addresses recreational fisheries management (Recreational Policy). Most anglers have probably never even considered the issue.
Now, NMFS is reaching out to saltwater anglers and the larger recreational fishing community, asking them to suggest needed changes to the Recreational Policy.
LINK (via MFCN)
