Thread: ‘Unprecedented’ warm blob weather phenomenon creates concerns for shrimp, Pacific whi

‘Unprecedented’ warm blob weather phenomenon creates concerns for shrimp, Pacific whiting


Credit: NOAA California Current Integrated Ecosystem Management Team

• Impact from warming ‘blob’ unclear for salmon, scientist says

• Fraser River sockeye catch 28% below 2010 as season nears close
• NOAA says warming ‘blob’ may impact Pacific marine life
• Fraser River salmon run estimate reduced but remains sizable; catch smaller than 2010’s

March 10, 2015, 2:14 pm
Jeanine Stewart

The Oregon shrimp catch seems likely to be down, Pacific hake fishing may be unusual this year and mahi mahi is showing up hundreds of miles further north than usual, thanks to a so-called "warm blob" that started in the Gulf of Alaska and then spread suddenly to North America's West Coast last September.

Since then, ocean temperatures have remained 3.6 to 5.4 degrees (F) above long term averages off the West coast of North America and the south of Russia.

“This is really unprecedented,” Bill Peterson, senior scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Newport, Oregon, told Undercurrent News.

The blob of record sea surface temperatures developed in the Gulf of Alaska in late 2013 then quickly spread to a much larger area last September. This developed long before -- and separate from -- this year's El Nino, which NOAA declared had arrived on Thursday after months of anticipation. The El Nino is causing warmer waters in the equatorial Pacific and may spread to the Northern hemisphere, but it is drawing far less concern from scientists Undercurrent spoke with than the now-expanded warm blob.

The El Nino is so weak, however, that it "is already starting to fizzle and actually could not happen" Peterson said on Tuesday.

A Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC) presentation from the NOAA California Current Integrated Ecosystem Management team highlighted the blob as the major concern -- not El Nino -- citing it as the possible cause of significant mortality of Cassin's auklets and California sea lion pups.

There are now concerns arising for the implications on multiple West Coast species, although implications remain hazy.

"I don't see a lot of good news," Nate Mantua, leader of the landscape ecology team for NMFS’ Southwest Fisheries Science Center, told Undercurrent.

Already, the Northern location of Fraser River sockeye last summer -- out of reach for US fishermen -- seems to have resulted from the phenomenon, Mantua said.

Shrimp could be next, but this time -- given past history -- the location of the resource is not the concern.

“We don’t know how it’s going to affect things, but it’s unlikely to be anything good,” Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife shrimp project leader Bob Hannah told Undercurrent. “Warm water like this is never good for shrimp, but I don’t know if this is going to be really bad or a little bit bad."

He is analyzing the implications of the warmer waters as the season’s start approaches April 1. It is possible the warmer temperatures will impact the age-one year class, one of the fishery’s target ages, but Hannah likely won’t know until fishing reports hit in late April.

“In the past, when we’ve had very warm waters that were associated with a big El Nino, we’ve basically had a failed year class of shrimp,” Hannah said, referring to the record breaking El Nino event of 1997.

This year's weak El Nino -- far different from the record breaking 1997 El Nino -- is not a major concern, and Hannah notes direct conclusions on what to expect from the warm blob cannot be drawn from the 1997 El Nino. The current phenomenon is separate from the El Nino, scientists said.

For other species, scientists will have to wait longer to know impacts on biomass. For finfish such as salmon an Pacific hake, the impacts would not show up for a few years, when fish from that year class reaches harvestable age, scientists told Undercurrent.

Fishing impacts could hit this year, however.

“Hake migrate north every spring from California, and they pretty much go slowly when the ocean’s cold and fast when the ocean’s warm,” Peterson said.

Pacific hake, sold commercially as Pacific whiting, is largely processed off the coast of Oregon, with the season beginning May 15 for at-sea processors and June 15 for the main shore-based fishery.

“If the ocean’s warm, they might go up to Canada next summer…certainly if the ocean stays warm into May or June, those hake are going to go way up into the Gulf of Alaska,” Peterson said. “That doesn’t mean they won’t pass by Oregon, but they may only be off the coast here for a few weeks rather than a few months.”

Scientists are also watching salmon closely, but questions are much more plentiful than answers.

One thing is for sure: scientists have a mysterious puzzle to study, with a lot of unknowns.

“Right now, we just need to tell people this is really weird, this is really different," Peterson said. "We don’t quite know what’s going to happen, so it’s been a lot of fun.”

http://www.undercurrentnews.com/2015...cific-whiting/

Ah, those climate folks will just never agree.
http://www.alipac.us/f19/more-eviden...g-noaa-318114/