Using the history of ocean and resource dynamics to foresee climate change
The Northwest Atlantic Ocean is a hotspot of climate change with profound impacts on marine life, ecosystem dynamics and fisheries.
To help foresee what to expect on the Scotian Shelf and Gulf of Maine in a warmer future, we looked back into the long-term history of climate and ecosystem dynamics over the past 4000 years.
For our reconstructions, we used paleontological, archaeological, historical and modern scientific data, and incorporated model projections of future trends up to 2100.
Read this open access paper on the FACETS website.
Our synthesis revealed four major phases of changes that were linked to climate conditions and fishing intensity.
For most of the past 4000 years, relatively stable cold, productive waters supported cold-adapted plankton, fish, and mammal communities and resource use by Indigenous and, since the 1600s, European people.
Meanwhile, the shift from subsistence to commercial and industrial exploitation was the strongest driver of change over the past centuries.
A clear signal of warming and productivity decline began in the 1960s, which is projected to intensify throughout the 21st century, with a rapidity that will far exceed any reconstructed changes over the past 4000 years.
This warming comes on top of strong fishing pressure and a range of other human impacts, thereby creating a double-negative effect on already depleted populations and shifts in fish community and ecosystem composition.
Marine management efforts and conservation strategies need to consider the historically unprecedented impact of upcoming climate changes by increasing their effectiveness to limit biodiversity loss and to ensure the sustainability of resource use in a warmer future.
Read the paper — Long-term ocean and resource dynamics in a hotspot of climate change by Heike K. Lotze, Stefanie Mellon, Jonathan Coyne, Matthew Betts, Meghan Burchell, Katja Fennel, Marisa A. Dusseault, Susanna D. Fuller, Eric Galbraith, Lina Garcia Suarez, Laura de Gelleke, Nina Golombek, Brianne Kelly, Sarah D. Kuehn, Eric Oliver, Megan MacKinnon, Wendy Muraoka, Ian T.G. Predham, Krysten Rutherford, Nancy Shackell, Owen Sherwood, Elizabeth C. Sibert, and Markus Kienast
