NOAA’s release revealed that a new climate-population model has been developed to study rising ocean temperatures and fishing rates on one east coast fish population could also forecast the impact of climate change and fishing on other fisheries. NOAA also said that the model is one of the first to directly link a specific stock with future impacts of climate change.
NOAA researchers predict the future of the Atlantic croaker fishery in the mid-Atlantic under various climate and fishing scenarios. Experts inform that Atlantic croaker (Micropogonias undulatus) is a coastal marine fish inhabiting the east coast of the United States with an $8 million (£5.4m) annual commercial fishery. Lead author Jon Hare of the Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) laboratory in Narragansett, Rhode Island, told that some fish populations will increase and others decrease as a result of climate change.
He also told that their results demonstrate that climate effects on fisheries must be identified and understood. He said that this should included in the scientific advice to managers, and factored into fishery management plans if sustainable exploitation is to be achieved.
With the rising of ocean temperature the researchers developed the population model for Atlantic croaker based on the hypothesis that recruitment, or survival of juveniles to adulthood, is determined by winter water temperature. Hare and colleagues from NOAA’s Northeast and Southeast Fisheries Science Centers, in collaboration with climate modellers from NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado, linked the Atlantic croaker population model with forecasts of minimum winter temperature in the 14 GCMs.
