Global Warming Could have a Tremendous Effect on the World Fisheries Production
By Tsuyoshi KawasakiABSTRACT
Sardine is the leading species in the pelagic fish ecosystem in the northwestern Pacific Ocean and the fluctuation in sardine biomass gives rise to the alternation between the other species.
A convective renewal of deep waters in the Greenland Sea and the Labrador Sea contributes significantly to the production of North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW), thus helping to drive the global thermohaline circulation. The intensity of convection at the two sites has been subject to alternate, interdecadal shift with a cycle of 70 years, which has caused the global climate change and driven the regime shift.
The ongoing global warming could switch off one of the two convection sites in the North Atlantic and destroy on the global scale mechanisms of the regime shift. Fish species possibly to receive catastrophic damage from the destruction of regime shift mechanisms are pelagics such as sardines, herrings, anchovies, sauries, jack and chub mackerels, whose productions account for 44% of 85,590 thousand tonnes of the total marine production in 1997.
The global warming could have a tremendous effect on the fisheries production in the world oceans.
KEYWORDS: global warming, regime shift, climate change, sardine, herring, NADW, thermohaline circulation, 70-year cycle, world fisheries production
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