Christopher M. Free, James T. Thorson, Malin L. Pinsky, Kiva L. Oken, John Wiedenmann, Olaf P. Jensen

Science

Published date March 1, 2019

Impacts of historical warming on marine fisheries production

  • Uses temperature-specific models and hindcasting across fish stocks to determine the degree to which warming has, and will, affect fish species
  • Finds that an overall reduction in yield has occurred over the past 80 years
  • Hindcasts indicate that the maximum sustainable yield of the evaluated populations decreased by 4.1% from 1930 to 2010, with five ecoregions experiencing losses of 15 to 35%
  • Finds that although some species are predicted to respond positively to warming waters, the majority will experience a negative impact on growth