From the NIPPON FOUNDATION-NEREUS PROGRAM
Meeting the Paris Agreement global warming target of 1.5°C will have large benefits to fisheries, finds a new Nippon Foundation-Nereus Program study published in Science. For every degree Celsius decrease in global warming, potential fish catches could increase by more than three million tonnes per year.
“Changes in ocean conditions that affect fishing catch potential, such as temperature and oxygen concentration, are strongly related to atmospheric warming and therefore also carbon emissions,” says author Thomas Frölicher, Nippon Foundation-Nereus Program Principal Investigator and Senior Scientist at ETH Zürich. “For every metric ton of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere, the maximum catch potential decreases by a significant amount.”
The authors compared the Paris Agreement 1.5°C warming scenario to the currently pledged 3.5°C by using computer models to simulate changes in global fisheries and quantify losses or gains. Due to the migration of fish towards cooler waters, climate change would also cause more species turnover, altering the composition of species within the stocks. This would have impacts on fishers and make fisheries management more difficult.
Certain regions are more sensitive to changes in temperature and will have substantially larger gains from achieving the Paris Agreement. The Indo-Pacific area would see a 40% increase in fisheries catches at 1.5° warming versus 3.5°. While the Arctic region would have a greater influx of fish under a high warming scenario, this would result in further sea ice losses and pressures to expand Arctic fisheries.
“The rapid increase in benefits for vulnerable tropical areas is a strong reason why 1.5° is an important target to meet,” says lead author William Cheung, Nippon Foundation-Nereus Program Director of Science and Associate Professor at UBC’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries. “Countries in these sensitive regions are highly dependent on fisheries for food and livelihood, but all countries will be impacted as the seafood supply chain is now highly globalized. Everyone would benefit from meeting the Paris Agreement. ”
The authors hope these results will provide further incentives for countries and the private sector to substantially increase their commitments and actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions because of the added benefits to fisheries.
“The trend we have projected is already happening. It’s a train that has left the station and is going faster and faster,” says author Gabriel Reygondeau, Nippon Foundation-Nereus Program Senior Fellow at UBC. “If one of the largest CO2 emitting countries gets out of the Paris Agreement, the efforts of the others will be clearly reduced. It’s not a question of how much we can benefit from the Paris Agreement, but how much we don’t want to lose.”
The study “Large benefits to marine fisheries of meeting the 1.5 °C global warming target” was published in Science. Article link: http://science.sciencemag.org/cgi/doi/10.1126/science.aag2331
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How can GHG cause oceans to warm to the depths we are talking about here?
You must be new to AGW.
Through the wonders of carbon magic.
Immaculate convection.
Good one, Neil!
Paul Homewood, who produces his own excellent web site:
Fallacy one:
To begin with, their falsehoods start with the alleged Paris Accord; which under the best proposed achievement would prevent a tiny fraction of a degree Fahrenheit; conflating the Paris Accord with only a 1.5°C is a fallacious quest.
Fallacy two:
Then the authors proceed to imply water bodies and waterways are rising in temperature from “global warming” and CO2 emissions.
Fallacy three:
The authors begin to make specious assumptions from water temperature increases that are not in Earth’s future out past several millennia, at worst.
Fallacy four:
Throughout the article the authors use vague emotional claims of disasters stemming from their depiction of the Paris Accord failing.
Which means they fail to accept the Paris Accord is a failure already.
Silly twits, every one. I hope they’re beholden to American funding: May their grantors seriously review the usage of grant funds against the lack of achievement for those funds.
What the focus should be on : excessive overfishing in our seas which is directly leading to lower fish stocks
What the focus is on : a particle that is good for plant life and has a small effect on temperature
Okay this is really hard to visualize.
First, we have gotten 0.3C since 1945. When they speak of 1.5C they are of course talking about since 1770 of which a large portion was not co2 related warming. So when they say 1.5C they are talking about roughly another 0.4C depending on how much you think happened over that period. I’m guessing they’re not saying we’re going to lose 3mm tonnes from the next 0.4C?
They talk about 3.5C which means another 2.4C which since 1770 we’ve gotten maybe 1C and since 1945 (70 years ) 0.3C. To get to 3.5C would be impossible just using co2. In fact given output likely we might see 0.3C more and never even reach 1.5C.
It’s pointless to talk of 3.5C since that is 10 times the gain we’ve seen in 70 years and co2 impact fe decreasss with co2 accumulation we would needs 1000 years of massively increased carbon usage to get that much increase.
This is a red herring. They project some ridiculous number and some theoretical almost certainly not true impact. Then in 50 years they will say wow we never reached 4000ppm co2 level so we averted the disaster that never had any chance of happening. Good thing we spent 40 trlllion dollars to avert something that was never going to happen.
That wonderful all purpose word COULD! It goes with salad, fish, or Polar Bear. Add COULD to any statement and you’re home free. If you statement proves wrong you only said could and its their fault for believing. If it proves right (no matter how short the period) you are a prophet.
They are still talking about the fictitious number 1.5. Thanks to the Canadian “expert” who made the motion in Paris ti lower it. They cannot measure the amount caused by humans and they cannot limit it to 1.5 or any other number they dream of. In addition that whole project was MODELING which again is pie in the sky.
“Disturbing research about the use of “narratives” in climate science papers”
Perhaps this study fits the above recent WUWT post.
Merry Christmas all.
The study could only be true if there are more fish in cold water oceans than in warm water oceans. I would think that would not be the case (haven’t researched this yet, though). Also, if there are more plankton, etc. in warm water, the authors of the study must not believe in evolution to think that animals would not take advantage of a greater food supply. They must be SCIENCE DENIERS!
OK, I take back my post. Seems fish do better in colder water because there is more flow from the colder to warmer regions of the ocean, so the plankton does better with the movement in the water. So, more fish.
Less arctic ice means greater evaporation netting more latent heat convection to the LCL and consequent increase in albedo..
Climate is a critically damped proportional-integral-derivative control system with multiple negative feedback mechanism. To assume positive feedback is total ignorance of observation.
The temperature in Lagos, Nigeria, which is 4 deg from the equator, was 28-31C when I was there in the mid 1960s, again the same in 1997(?) and the same now. Climate science used to preach that the tropics didn’t change but the temperate and polar regions did. I’m afraid post normal millenniums are pushing out the obfuscatory narrative handwaving emotive stuff in line with guidelines for getting away from contentious fact – based stuff.
The absence of fish in the Indo-Pacific area is the fault of the western civilisations. /sarc
And consider that for all the “warming” it is said we have experienced over the last few decades, the maximum temperature in 2016 is still not as hot as it was in the 1930’s, when CO2 levels were much lower.
The alarmists want to act like we have had unusual warming but what we have had is, starting in 1910 to 1940, we had warming equal to today’s warming, and then from 1940 to 1970’s we had cooling, and from 1979 (the satellite era) to today we have had the same amount of warming as we had from 1910-1940.
Now, here we are with the temperatures going down, not up. Which would make sense if we are coming off a huge El Nino spike and starting into another cooling phase like happened in 1940.
All natural, baby!
Where’s the temperature going from here? The alarmists say up. The skeptics say we don’t know, but there is no reason to assume that they will continue up rather than down, based on past history. As always, time will tell.
Another rent seeking faux study.
Another rent seeking faux study. These authors sound much more like used car salesmen or televangelists than scientists. Why is that climate hypesters so predictably ignore the reality of over use of a resource- like over fishing in this case- and historical fluctuations in the resource to sell their insanely over stated risks and rewards? They think those supporting their ideas are really stupid.
Theoretical study?
Worked in a giant LNG port/plant for a few years. They produce a huge amount of waste heat, which is dumped in the giant harbour. The harbour was heated by a couple of degrees, and to a lesser extent for kilometers outside the harbour mouth. After 20 years, this had caused the coral reefs to boom, and the fish to increase in number and grow bigger.
So after 20 years commercial fishermen migrated in, in there thousands, and fished the region out, and the foreign Green NGO’s blamed the the gas plant, but that’s another nasty story with consequences for the locals that lead me to never trust Watermellons.
The study is wrong.
I’ve heard of fishing in a bucket.
But fishing in a broken computer? That’s a new one. I suppose they catch virtual fish.
Tropical waters are teeming with fish.
I suggest that they go snorkeling next time they have a climate boondoggle conference in the Caribbean.
Very Dodgy….when do they expect that the water below 6 meters, [ sea surface temps, but sea water temps] where nearly all fish stocks live, will increase in temperature enough to make a difference to the fish? At 0.004 degrees every 10 years, it might take some time.
You gotta look at the study — they claim that the sea water temperature at the ocean bottom will change by + 0.5 degrees C! Ridiculous.
How much has natural variability altered the oceans temperature over the last 10,000 years ? Hit the replay button on that and you have a better chance of being right than some climate model which can’t even accurately calculate the overwhelming effect of natural variability for 20 years .
Climate models have proven one thing … they grossly over estimate with a consistent warming bias .
Warm waters seem to be far more heavily populated by fish than cold waters, same as human population patterns . Go global warming !
Really, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLnZ1NQm2uk