Even the fish are feeling the heat...

What about COD? (yeah, the fish)

Even fish are starting to feel the heat...

What about the state of cod populations off of the east coast of North America?  Fish!?  Yep, read on.

Cod fisheries hit peak landing totals in the late 1980s, but during the early 1990s catch tonnage along the entire US east coast and up into maritime Canada plummeted.  Fisheries scientists found that cod populations were extremely depleted on both the Georges and Grand Banks, as well as on other traditional east coast fishing grounds.  An unprecedented 10-year moratorium on commercial fishing was implemented in an effort to give the cod population a change to recover.  Since cod are such an important food fish, fisheries managers work consistently to assess the health of cod stocks.  This is done mainly via bottom trawl sampling.  Little did fisheries managers know at the time that these cod trawl may provide insight into effects of climate change on marine species.

Cod are bottom fish, and though they do not need especially high levels of dissolved oxygen, they prefer cold water.  So if water temperatures shift, that could affect cod distribution.

On 18 Sept 2012, the Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA, Woods Hole, MA) released a report stating that 2012 produced the warmest seawater temperatures ever recorded off of New England.  The NEFSC also released results of the latest bottom trawl survey designed to map the location and densities of Atlantic cod.  The results were significant when compared to bottom trawl data from previous years.  Look at the following trawl results from the following time periods.

By the way, areas closer to red indicate higher concentrations of cod.  Areas closer to blue have very few to no cod present.

Here are the results from 1968-1972.  Cod were present to relatively abundant in the coastal waters of NJ, NY, CN, RI, MA, NH, and ME, as well as in waters of the continental shelf west of MA, NH, and ME, and on up into Canada.

Here is the cod distribution 1973-1977 - similar to 1968-1972.

Here is the cod distribution 1978-1982 - similar to 1973-1977, except that there are fewer fish south of Long Island.

Here are the data from 1983-1987 - there are fewer cod inshore along the coast of Maine, but otherwise no major changes.

Here are the data from 1988-1992 - fish densities south of Long Island and in coastal Maine remain low.

The data for 1993-1997 show a significant decline in fish, and there are extremely few fish south of Cape Cop, and the number of fish offshore is and down.  This suggests a lower population density of the cod, and that remaining cod appear to be moving north.

The data from 1998-2002 continue to show very few inshore cod south of Cape Cod.

These data from 2003-207 show an alarming decline in abundance, plus cod appear to be shifting northward more, with very few remaining in the Gulf of Maine.

Data from 2008-2012 confirm the data from 2003-200 with cod being found almost exclusively north of Cape Cod.  This shift northward is correlated with increases in seawater temperature off of New England, and may represent a species-level response to water temperature change.

Northeast Fisheries Science Center - NOAA - Woods Hole, MA.
http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/press_release/2012/SciSpot/SS1209/

What about Arctic sea ice?

Is the house on fire? Indications of climate change - 2012

I'm not an alarmist, but there are times to be alarmed - like when your house is on fire, or when you see the headlong approach of unswerving headlights.

When it comes to global climate, is the house on fire?

Record-settting number of high temperature records

The most recent data I could find on daily temperature records in the USA was from July 2012.  According to the National Climate Data Center, there were 23,283 new record high temperatures set across the United States from Jan-July 2012.

There are also some other troubling data and scenarios out there.

In mid-July a compelling article on climate change and current weather and climate patterns by Bill McKibben appeared in Rolling Stone Magazine.  You can read it in its entirety by clicking the link below.  

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-terrifying-new-math-20120719

Building on data presented in that article we are now entering the 329th consecutive month with average temperatures above the 20th century average.  Yes, you read that right...329th month...that's nearly 27.5 years where EVERY month's average was above the 1900-1999 average temperature.  Now it is expected that any set of data from a natural system would include variability - year to year rainfall totals, temperature fluctuations, your heart rate, your annual body mass fluctuations, etc.  But when we see over 27 years of monthly average temperature data above the average of that for an entire century of temperature readings, we should probably sit up and think about what's going on.

If temperature fluctuations were behaving completely randomly, with no long-term temperature increase or decrease, we would predict that a given month's average temperature has a 50% chance (probability = 0.5) of being above average.  The chances of two consecutive months being above average would be 0.5 x 0.5 = 0.25 (= a 25% chance of happening by random chance alone).  So, what are the odds of observing 329 consecutive months with average temperatures above the 1900-1999 average temperature by random chance alone?  to get the answer to this question you need to multiply 0.5 by itself 329 times.  The answer is, according to the Rolling Stone article 3.7 x 10^-99.  That means that there is a 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000037% chance of that happening by random chance alone.  That's such a small likelihood of happening that it's time to look for things that could be driving that other than random chance.

The prime suspect?  A trend of global climate change, i.e., global warming.

The total global average temperature hasn't increased all that much so far in the past 100 years or so...only 0.8oC.  And if we are seeing significant changes with only this small change in global temperature, what could happen when we reach 2oC?  - the projected limit that we could reach without incurring MAJOR global environmental and ecological effects?

BTW, climate models suggest that the atmosphere-ocean-earth system may be able to accommodate the emission of another 595 gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere before we reach the 2oC mark.  But guess what?  The cumulative proven reserves of fossil fuels currently controlled by energy companies and countries with nationalized mining and extraction = 2,795 gigatons of fossil fuel.  That's just the fossil fuel that we know about.  That's 5x the total we can emit before hitting the 2oC mark.

Are there other indicators are there that climate is shifting?  Check out some of my other postings.