Gulf of Maine Fishermen Face Warming ‘Double Whammy’

Oceans are sucking down most of the heat trapped by greenhouse gases, but the rate of warming has been especially high during the last decade in the Gulf of Maine, which is north of Rhode Island.  The changes are driving down populations of commercially valuable cod in the waterway and ushering warmer water species into it.

New research using a next-generation computer model developed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reveals that warming rates in the fishing hotspot could be three times the global averages during the decades ahead.

“There’s still a lot of cod around, but they’re in different places than where you’d expect,” said Goethel, who has been fishing for the cold water species in the Gulf of Maine since 1967.  Last week’s outing saw him nearly max out his small cod quota for the fishing year, which begins and ends in the spring.  So the 62-year-old says he will mostly stay home now or target lobsters, skate and monkfish.  “I’ve seen really dramatic changes in my lifetime.”

A doubling of carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere could lead to warming of 3° or 4°C (5° to 7°F) in the surface waters of the Gulf of Maine, the modeling showed.  Carbon dioxide concentrations have risen more than 40 percent since the Industrial Revolution. 

Not only are oceans getting warmer worldwide, but global warming is draining the vigor from a giant ocean conveyor belt known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC. The new modeling results show that a weakening of the conveyor belt will see warm tropical and cool Arctic currents both pushed further north of the gulf’s mouth.

The changes projected by NOAA’s model were published last week in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans. They suggest there will be a “real transformation of this ecosystem,” said Andrew Pershing, a Gulf of Maine Research Institute scientist.

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