Climate Change & Salmon

Submitted by larryf13 on Tue, 08/18/2015 - 1:54pm

Can we see some of the effects of a warming climate…. I believe the answer is clearly yes. California is suffering from the worst drought in a millennium. Forest fires are almost uncontainable in the north western part of the U.S. with almost 5 million acres of forest being destroyed, in early August, 27.1% of the contiguous U.S. was in drought, London reached 98 degrees Fahrenheit during the hottest July day ever recorded in the U.K, Puerto Rico is under its strictest water rationing in history.

Back in March, NOAA's Climate Prediction Center announced that a weak El Niño had formed in the Pacific, but many experts initially thought it might just fizzle out in the summer. Instead, El Niño kept getting stronger, with ocean temperatures in the eastern tropical Pacific continuing to soar. Some forecasters now think this could turn into one of the strongest El Niño events in memory when it peaks later this fall or winter.  The last truly massive El Niño appeared in 1997-'98 and ended up causing an estimated $35 billion in destruction and 23,000 deaths around the world.

Warming temperatures, fires and floods are one thing but if climate change disrupts our food supply, people take notice.  Since 2001, salmon (including canned salmon) has ranked third among fish species consumed in the United States. Salmon are crucial to the coastal ecosystem like perhaps few other species on the planet. A significant portion of the nitrogen in West Coast forests has been traced back to salmon, which can travel hundreds of miles upstream to lay their eggs. The largest trees on Earth simply wouldn't exist without salmon….and likewise, salmon need trees to survive.*

But their situation is precarious. This year, officials in California are bringing salmon downstream in convoys of trucks, because river levels are too low and the temperatures too warm for them to have a reasonable chance of surviving. One species, the winter-run Chinook salmon, is at a particularly increased risk of decline in the next few years, should the warm water persist offshore. Fishermen are totally baffled as to what’s going on. Atmospheric scientists point to a cycling warming of the north Pacific that happens a few times each century.

Whatever the cause, nobody wants any disruption of their salmon supply.

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http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=wildlifenews.view_article&art…