Abstract

Marine heatwaves (MHWs) have occurred in all ocean basins with severe negative impacts on coastal and ocean ecosystems. The northeast Pacific 2013–2015 MHW in particular received major societal concerns. Yet, our knowledge about how MHWs impact fish stocks is limited. Here, we combine outputs from a large ensemble simulation of an Earth system model with a fish impact model to simulate responses of major northeast Pacific fish stocks to MHWs. We show that MHWs cause biomass decrease and shifts in biogeography of fish stocks that are at least four times faster and bigger in magnitude than the effects of decadal-scale mean changes throughout the 21st century. With MHWs, we project a doubling of impact levels by 2050 amongst the most important fisheries species over previous assessments that focus only on long-term climate change. Our results underscore the additional challenges from MHWs for fisheries and their management under climate change.

Details

Title
Marine heatwaves exacerbate climate change impacts for fisheries in the northeast Pacific
Author
Cheung William W L 1 ; Frölicher, Thomas L 2 

 The University of British Columbia, Changing Ocean Research Unit, Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, Vancouver, Canada (GRID:grid.17091.3e) (ISNI:0000 0001 2288 9830) 
 University of Bern, Climate and Environmental Physics, Physics Institute, Bern, Switzerland (GRID:grid.5734.5) (ISNI:0000 0001 0726 5157); University of Bern, Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, Bern, Switzerland (GRID:grid.5734.5) (ISNI:0000 0001 0726 5157) 
Publication year
2020
Publication date
2020
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
e-ISSN
20452322
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2393004971
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2020. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.