Marine heatwaves could wipe out an extra six per cent of a country’s fish catches, costing millions their jobs

Extremely hot years will wipe out hundreds of thousands of tons of fish available for catch in a country’s waters in this century, on top of projected decreases to fish stocks from long-term climate change, a new study predicts. Modelling a worst-case scenario where no action is taken to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions they projected a six per cent drop in the amount of potential catches per year and 77 per cent of exploited species are projected to decrease in biomass, or the amount of fish by weight in a given area, due to extremely hot years. These decreases are on top of those projected due to long-term decadal-scale climate change. The study highlights the need to develop ways to deal with marine temperature extremes, and soon, the researchers say. …read more