Oh noes! Fishy modeling study says 'Fish and Chips' to disappear in the UK

Galleon_Fish_and_Chip_shop,_Conwy._-_geograph.org.uk_-_962443[1] — The Galleon Fish and Chips Shop in Conwy, UK – soon to be doomed by climate change. Source: Wikimedia

I get this daily newsletter from a paid political pot stirrer called “Climate Nexus”, which is actually a Madison Avenue PR firm. They write today of a new paper, Rutterford et al.:

The punch line from Climate NEXUS:

From Fish and Chips to Just Chips: Some of the most traditional and cherished staples of the English diet may become scarce as a result of climate change, a new study finds. As North Sea waters continue to warm, haddock, the eponymous fish in “fish and chips,” is expected to decline, as well as plaice and lemon sole. Already, the North Sea has warmed four times faster than the global average over the past 40 years.

They claim (using a modeled fish abundance of course) that Atlantic Cod and other species will be significantly affected by “warming seas”.

The laughable thing about this study is that they don’t seem to be aware of real-world variables, such as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), and its effects on fish stocks, either anecdotally from the fishermen, or from the recent peer reviewed literature, “Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) modulates dynamics of small pelagic fishes and ecosystem regime shifts in the eastern North and Central Atlantic”, Alheit et al. where it is stated:

Abundance fluctuations of fish populations correspond to alternating AMO phases.
Regime shifts in eastern North Atlantic ecosystems are associated with AMO dynamics.
AMO affects Mediterranean fish populations.
European clupeoid populations exhibit synchronous multi-decadal changes in abundance.
Contraction of sub-polar gyre assumed to trigger synchronicity in fish populations.

And the correlation from that paper:

Fig. 7. First principal component (PC1) based on the main long-term data sets of small pelagics available in the Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean between 1945 and 2010. The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) is superimposed.

They make no mention of the real-world effect of AMO at all in the paper that I can find. It’s models all the way down:

At least there’s a small caveat that won’t make into any alarming news story:This narrow focus on models over reality might be due to the fact that the lead author, Louise A. Rutterford, is a biologist, and I don’t think the word ‘meteorology’ is in her vocabulary.

Fish and chips are far more likely to disappear due to the actions of nanny-state food police like Bloomberg who think none of us should be allowed to eat fried foods, than to disappear because of human-caused climate change.

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Max Photon

April 14, 2015 9:13 pm

If you folks want to see some real control freakery, come here where the Columbia River meets the Pacific Ocean.
The control freaks here fantasize that they manage the various salmon populations, and wield ever-more arbitrary power as they micro-manage fishing, from commercial to recreation, at such excruciatingly absurd levels that your jaw would drop to the ground if you could get your mind around the mindlessness.
The control freaks also pretend to manage the California sea lion population, whose numbers have exploded here.
See: Boom times on the Columbia for California sea lions
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/environment/boom-times-on-the-columbia-for-california-sea-lions/
But now the vast army of sea lions is devouring all of the precious salmon, so the control freaks are “forced” to “euthanize” (read: murder) sea lions.
Now, sea lions are protected marine mammals, so if you or I so much as get too close to one, we get fined and/or go to prison. But it’s okay for the Chosenites to decide who lives and who dies (when they are not busy torturing the poor creatures by trapping and branding them).
I adore sea lions. They are such an integral part of my surfing experience, as I usually surf completely alone, and have these 500 to 1000 lb creatures hanging out with me, sometimes little more than an arm’s length away. They are absolutely magnificent beings.
I wonder how the control freaks would like it if I put together a posse using other peoples’ money to round them up, trap them, brand them, glue radio transponders to their heads, clip their ears, pull some teeth, and perhaps ‘euthanize’ a few, depending on how I felt about, say, the color blue that day?

tty

Reply to Max Photon

April 15, 2015 12:19 am

You are lucky to have California Sea Lions to surf with. For some reason they (and the closely related Galapagos sea lions) are much nicer and friendlier than other fur seals, that can be downright dangerous to deal with.

andrewmharding

Editor

Reply to Max Photon

April 15, 2015 2:54 am

Max, we were in California last year and spent a few days in San Francisco, saw loads of sea lions on Pier 39. They are, as you say magnificent creatures, but you could smell and hear them before you saw them, Loved Death Valley too, the most quiet place I have ever visited.

george e. smith

Reply to Max Photon

April 15, 2015 1:45 pm

Well I can see you haven’t been fishing out in The Monterey Bay waters. There we have loads of those charming fur bags that you like to surf with. Yes they are a protected nuisance, and you may not even defend yourself from them.
Whadya mean ‘protect’ pardner ?
Well gone are the days when a sea lion would just wait for you to hook a salmon behind your boat, and then it would simply take it off your line, and maybe some gear with it.
No more; they simply watch you bring the fish in to your boat, and then they jump in the boat with you and take your fish. And you can’t even use your mandatory oar or paddle to protect yourself or your catch. In many cases, you will be more concerned that the extra 500 pounds you just took on board doesn’t capsize and sink your boat.
When the local SF Bay and environs salmon sport fishing fleet, set out to the waters outside the Gate, towards the Farralones, the fur bags simply follow the boats out right from the docks to the fishing grounds, and whether it is salmon or striped bass or even rockfish, they will take your catch.
Albacore and tuna fishermen are not forgotten either. The salmon thieves are just as likely to take your albacore from you as well.
When you artificially interfere with the natural order of things, then you end up with mayhem.
Sea lion fur bags used to give humans a wide berth, or they often risked getting shot. Well at least a whack on the nose with a paddle or oar, if they got near a boat.
Now you are not even aloud to swear at them, or even yell at them.
But today’s salmon fishermen are all friends of the man in the gray suit. They love it out at the Farralones, when the man gets himself or herself a nice sea lion snack. Same goes for the Orcas.
Nowadays we could really do with a few Megaladons around to clean up the neighborhood.

Just an engineer

Reply to Max Photon

April 15, 2015 2:44 pm

Max, could I interest you in a Chosenite Club?

theost168

April 14, 2015 11:24 pm

Did Climate NEXUS pull their promo story? I couldn’t find it when I searched.

tty

April 15, 2015 12:11 am

The lack of historical awareness in the clim-sci establishment never ceases to amaze me. Fish distribution has always shifted, often abruptly, due to oceangraphic changes.
In Scandinavian history “Herring Periods” when the herring suddenly became abundant in coastal waters, causing general prosperity, have been a well-known phenomenon since the Middle Ages. They are well documented since the 16th Century:
1556-1589
1660-1680
1747-1809
1877-1906

April 15, 2015 1:13 am

Tropical fish & chips. There, problem solved. 🐠🐠&🍟

flea

April 15, 2015 3:08 am

strange this as a beach fisherman (hobby) the uk has had a very good yr for codling small but in good amounts .it was more to do with over fishing ..the rest of the eu catch and eat young cod and any other fish they get there hands on so stocks have no way of bouncing back ..but I can see it getting better with the new rules in place and being inforced

Dave Ward

April 15, 2015 3:56 am

@ur momisugly george e. smith
April 14, 2015 at 12:13 pm
“You’ve got to have paper with ink on it to wrap fish and chips in, so once the nonews is all digital, there will be nothing to wrap fish and chips in.”
Fish and chip shops don’t use newspaper to wrap their products these days, and haven’t for years. The “Elf & Safety” brigade outlawed the practice – concerns about germs and chemicals in the ink, if I remember correctly. Some may still use newsprint for outer wrapping, but not before fresh (bleached?) white paper is used for the first layer…

george e. smith

Reply to Dave Ward

April 15, 2015 1:51 pm

So just who was the last poor unlucky individual who died from eating fish and chips out of a newspaper ? I grew up on the newswrappings, and I don’t think I even tasted anything funny.
Some busybodies just have far too much time on their hands. We need much more grid lock in WDC, to frustrate the meddlers.

Cube

April 15, 2015 7:31 am

philincalifornia April 14, 2015 at 9:41 am
From the BBC report on it:
“The flat fish are really in trouble,” Dr Simpson, a researcher on the study, told BBC News.
“Unless they can change their habitat and diet in the next 20 or 30 years, or adapt to 2 degrees more warming – which is a big ask – then they will decline.”
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-32286800
What a load of fertilizer! For the last several years we’ve been catching large winter flounder off the NJ coast- in July! We can’t keep them of course, you’re not allowed to keep anything anymore, but catching winter fish in the summer is no indication of warming! There is no shortage of cod down here either, though I can’t speak to the Grand Banks.

Evan Jones

Editor

April 18, 2015 2:39 pm

If fishes were wishes, we’d all go nuts.

Justthinkin

April 20, 2015 4:21 am

Hasn’t anybody learned that if you let the government meddle in anything, it is doomed? They are all just political wh@res, seeking a pension. At least the wh@res on the street give you something for your money! We have a 200 mile territorial limit on the Grand Banks, but we let every Tom,Dick,and Harry in to fish. Stupid, or just stupider? And the greatest and most efficient killers of cod are seals. But can’t kill them, thanks to Euro-weenies. Sometimes I think we should have just let Germany have them all. Sad.

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