Relationships between Alaskan salmon catch and North Pacific climate on interannual and interdecadal time scales

1998 ◽  
Vol 55 (10) ◽  
pp. 2255-2265 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary W Downton ◽  
Kathleen A Miller

Using multivariate time series models, Alaska's statewide commercial catch of three salmon species during 1925-1994 is shown to be related to surface temperatures in particular large regions of the eastern North Pacific. Previous research has indicated that interdecadal changes in Alaskan catch levels are related to large-scale changes in the climate regime of the North Pacific. The present work focuses on interannual variability by controlling for climatic shifts in the mid-1940s and mid-1970s. For sockeye (Oncorhynchus nerka) and chum (O. keta), relationships with temperature occur within a few months after ocean entry with warmer regional temperatures enhancing survival. For sockeye and pink salmon (O. gorbuscha), relationships with temperature occur at the time and location of the return migration, suggesting that colder ocean temperatures may enhance spawning success or egg survival. In addition, the models show a significant positive relationship of chum catch to pink catch 2 years earlier, suggesting a common influence on smolts of the two species. The results support the contention that climatic factors affecting the marine environment play a significant role in salmon production on interannual, as well as interdecadal, time scales.

2014 ◽  
Vol 71 (7) ◽  
pp. 1717-1727 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Jason Phillips ◽  
Lorenzo Ciannelli ◽  
Richard D. Brodeur ◽  
William G. Pearcy ◽  
John Childers

Abstract This study investigated the spatial distribution of juvenile North Pacific albacore (Thunnus alalunga) in relation to local environmental variability [i.e. sea surface temperature (SST)], and two large-scale indices of climate variability, [the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and the Multivariate El Niño/Southern Oscillation Index (MEI)]. Changes in local and climate variables were correlated with 48 years of albacore troll catch per unit effort (CPUE) in 1° latitude/longitude cells, using threshold Generalized Additive Mixed Models (tGAMMs). Model terms were included to account for non-stationary and spatially variable effects of the intervening covariates on albacore CPUE. Results indicate that SST had a positive and spatially variable effect on albacore CPUE, with increasingly positive effects to the North, while PDO had an overall negative effect. Although albacore CPUE increased with SST both before and after a threshold year of 1986, such effect geographically shifted north after 1986. This is the first study to demonstrate the non-stationary spatial dynamics of albacore tuna, linked with a major shift of the North Pacific. Results imply that if ocean temperatures continue to increase, US west coast fisher communities reliant on commercial albacore fisheries are likely to be negatively affected in the southern areas but positively affected in the northern areas, where current albacore landings are highest.


2006 ◽  
Vol 134 (12) ◽  
pp. 3567-3587 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda M. Keller ◽  
Michael C. Morgan ◽  
David D. Houghton ◽  
Ross A. Lazear

Abstract A climatology of large-scale, persistent cyclonic flow anomalies over the North Pacific was constructed using the National Centers for Environmental Prediction–National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCEP–NCAR) global reanalysis data for the cold season (November–March) for 1977–2003. These large-scale cyclone (LSC) events were identified as those periods for which the filtered geopotential height anomaly at a given analysis point was at least 100 m below its average for the date for at least 10 days. This study identifies a region of maximum frequency of LSC events at 45°N, 160°W [key point 1 (KP1)] for the entire period. This point is somewhat to the east of regions of maximum height variability noted in previous studies. A second key point (37.5°N, 162.5°W) was defined as the maximum in LSC frequency for the period after November 1988. The authors show that the difference in location of maximum LSC frequency is linked to a climate regime shift at about that time. LSC events occur with a maximum frequency in the period from November through January. A composite 500-hPa synoptic evolution, constructed relative to the event onset, suggests that the upper-tropospheric precursor for LSC events emerges from a quasi-stationary long-wave trough positioned off the east coast of Asia. In the middle and lower troposphere, the events are accompanied by cold thickness advection from a thermal trough over northeastern Asia. The composite mean sea level evolution reveals a cyclone that deepens while moving from the coast of Asia into the central Pacific. As the cyclone amplifies, it slows down in the central Pacific and becomes nearly stationary within a day of onset. Following onset, at 500 hPa, a stationary wave pattern, resembling the Pacific–North American teleconnection pattern, emerges with a ridge immediately downstream (over western North America) and a trough farther downstream (from the southeast coast of the United States into the western North Atlantic). The implications for the resulting sensible weather and predictability of the flow are discussed. An adjoint-derived sensitivity study was conducted for one of the KP1 cases identified in the climatology. The results provide dynamical confirmation of the LSC precursor identification for the events. The upper-tropospheric precursor is seen to play a key role not only in the onset of the lower-tropospheric height falls and concomitant circulation increases, but also in the eastward extension of the polar jet across the Pacific. The evolution of the forecast sensitivities suggest that LSC events are not a manifestation of a modal instability of the time mean flow, but rather the growth of a favorably configured perturbation on the flow.


2011 ◽  
Vol 68 (6) ◽  
pp. 1122-1130 ◽  
Author(s):  
James R. Irvine ◽  
Masa-aki Fukuwaka

Abstract Irvine, J. R., and Fukuwaka, M. 2011. Pacific salmon abundance trends and climate change. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 68: 1122–1130. Understanding reasons for historical patterns in salmon abundance could help anticipate future climate-related changes. Recent salmon abundance in the northern North Pacific Ocean, as indexed by commercial catches, has been among the highest on record, with no indication of decline; the 2009 catch was the highest to date. Although the North Pacific Ocean continues to produce large quantities of Pacific salmon, temporal abundance patterns vary among species and areas. Currently, pink and chum salmon are very abundant overall and Chinook and coho salmon are less abundant than they were previously, whereas sockeye salmon abundance varies among areas. Analyses confirm climate-related shifts in abundance, associated with reported ecosystem regime shifts in approximately 1947, 1977, and 1989. We found little evidence to support a major shift after 1989. From 1990, generally favourable climate-related marine conditions in the western North Pacific Ocean, as well as expanding hatchery operations and improving hatchery technologies, are increasing abundances of chum and pink salmon. In the eastern North Pacific Ocean, climate-related changes are apparently playing a role in increasing chum and pink salmon abundances and declining numbers of coho and Chinook salmon.


<em>Abstract</em>.-Pacific salmon <em>Oncorhynchus </em>spp. catches are at historic high levels. It is significant that one of the world's major fisheries for a group of species that dominates the surface waters of the subarctic Pacific is actually very healthy. Natural trends in climate are now recognized to cause large fluctuations in Pacific salmon production, as shown in historical records of catch and recent changes probably have been affected by greenhouse gas induced climate changes. Pink salmon <em>O. gorbuscha </em>and chum salmon <em>O. keta </em>production and catch has increased in the past 30 years and may continue in a similar trend for for the next few decades. Coho salmon <em>O. kisutch </em>and Chinook salmon <em>O. tshawytscha </em>catches have been declining for several decades, particularly at the southern end of their range, and they may continue to decline. In the 1970s, hatcheries were considered to be a method of adding to the wild production of coho and Chinook salmon because the ocean capacity to produce these species was assumed to be underutilized. Large-scale changes in Pacific salmon abundances are linked to changes in large-scale atmospheric processes. These large-scale atmospheric processes are also linked to planetary energy transfers, and there is a decadal scale pattern to these relationships. Pacific salmon production in general is higher in decades of intense Aleutian lows than in periods of weak Aleutian lows. Key to understanding the impact of climate change on Pacific salmon is understanding how the Aleutian low will change. Chinook and coho salmon are minor species in the total commercial catch, but important socially and economically in North America. A wise use of hatcheries may be needed to maintain abundances of these species in future decades.


2012 ◽  
Vol 140 (4) ◽  
pp. 1067-1080 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bing Fu ◽  
Melinda S. Peng ◽  
Tim Li ◽  
Duane E. Stevens

Global daily reanalysis fields from the Navy Operational Global Atmospheric Prediction System (NOGAPS) are used to analyze Northern Hemisphere summertime (June–September) developing and nondeveloping disturbances for tropical cyclone (TC) formation from 2003 to 2008. This is Part II of the study focusing on the western North Pacific (WNP), following Part I for the North Atlantic (NATL) basin. Tropical cyclone genesis in the WNP shows different characteristics from that in the NATL in both large-scale environmental conditions and prestorm disturbances. A box difference index (BDI) is used to identify parameters in differentiating between the developing and nondeveloping disturbances. In order of importance, they are 1) 800-hPa maximum relative vorticity, 2) rain rate, 3) vertically averaged horizontal shear, 4) vertically averaged divergence, 5) 925–400-hPa water vapor content, 6) SST, and 7) translational speed. The study indicates that dynamic variables are more important in TC genesis in the WNP, while in Part I of the study the thermodynamic variables are identified as more important in the NATL. The characteristic differences between the WNP and the NATL are compared.


2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (6) ◽  
pp. 3927-3937 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Mewes ◽  
Christoph Jacobi

Abstract. Arctic amplification causes the meridional temperature gradient between middle and high latitudes to decrease. Through this decrease the large-scale circulation in the midlatitudes may change and therefore the meridional transport of heat and moisture increases. This in turn may increase Arctic warming even further. To investigate patterns of Arctic temperature, horizontal transports and their changes in time, we analysed ERA-Interim daily winter data of vertically integrated horizontal moist static energy transport using self-organizing maps (SOMs). Three general transport pathways have been identified: the North Atlantic pathway with transport mainly over the northern Atlantic, the North Pacific pathway with transport from the Pacific region, and the Siberian pathway with transport towards the Arctic over the eastern Siberian region. Transports that originate from the North Pacific are connected to negative temperature anomalies over the central Arctic. These North Pacific pathways have been becoming less frequent during the last decades. Patterns with origin of transport in Siberia are found to have no trend and show cold temperature anomalies north of Svalbard. It was found that transport patterns that favour transport through the North Atlantic into the central Arctic are connected to positive temperature anomalies over large regions of the Arctic. These temperature anomalies resemble the warm Arctic–cold continents pattern. Further, it could be shown that transport through the North Atlantic has been becoming more frequent during the last decades.


2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (7) ◽  
pp. 150177 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yulia V. Ivashchenko ◽  
Phillip J. Clapham

The failure of international efforts to manage commercial whaling was exemplified by revelations of large-scale illegal whale catches by the USSR over a 30 year period following World War II. Falsifications of catch data have also been reported for Japanese coastal whaling, but to date there has been no investigation of the reliability of catch statistics for Japanese pelagic (factory fleet) whaling operations. Here, we use data of known reliability from Soviet whaling industry reports to show that body lengths reported to the International Whaling Commission (IWC) by Japanese factory fleets for female sperm whales caught in the North Pacific are not credible. In 1968/1969, Japanese whaling fleets in the North Pacific killed 1568 females, of which 1525 (97.3%) were reported as being at or above the IWC's minimum length of 11.6 m (legal-sized females, LSFs). By contrast, Soviet fleets operating during this period killed 12 578 females; only 824 (6.6%) were LSFs. Adjusting for effort, catches of LSFs were up to 9.1 times higher for Japan compared with the USSR, and even higher for very large females. Dramatic differences in body length statistics were evident when both nations operated in the same area. Significantly, the frequency of LSFs and very large females in the Japanese catch markedly declined after the IWC's International Observer Scheme in 1972 made illegal whaling more difficult. We conclude that the Japanese length data reflect systematic falsification of catch statistics submitted to the IWC, with serious implications for the reliability of data used in current population assessments. The apparent ease with which catch data were falsified in the past underscores the necessity of transparent and independent inspection procedures in any future commercial whaling.


2010 ◽  
Vol 138 (12) ◽  
pp. 4362-4374 ◽  
Author(s):  
James I. Belanger ◽  
Judith A. Curry ◽  
Peter J. Webster

Abstract Recent work suggests that there may exist skill in forecasting tropical cyclones (TC) using dynamically based ensemble products, such as those obtained from the ECMWF Monthly Forecast System (ECMFS). The ECMFS features an ensemble of 51 coupled ocean–atmosphere simulations integrated to 32 days once per week. Predicted levels of TC activity in the North Atlantic Ocean with these monthly ensemble forecasts is compared with the observed variability during the months of June–October during 2008 and 2009. Results indicate that the forecast system can capture large-scale regions that have a higher or lower risk of TC activity and that it has skill above climatology for the Gulf of Mexico and the “Main Development Region” on intraseasonal time scales. Regional forecast skill is traced to the model’s ability to capture the large-scale evolution of deep-layer vertical shear, the frequency of easterly waves, and the variance in 850-hPa relative vorticity. The predictability of TC activity, along with the forecast utility of the ECMFS, is shown to be sensitive to the phase and intensity of the Madden–Julian oscillation at the time of model initialization.


2011 ◽  
Vol 68 (6) ◽  
pp. 1131-1137 ◽  
Author(s):  
Masa-aki Fukuwaka ◽  
Toshiki Kaga ◽  
Tomonori Azumaya

Abstract Fukuwaka, M., Kaga, T., and Azumaya, T. 2011. Regional differences in climate factors controlling chum and pink salmon abundance. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 68: 1131–1137. Chum and pink salmon abundances vary on a decadal time-scale. We examined the relationship between large-scale climate indices (CIs), regional climate factors (RFs), and rates of change in regional catches (RCs) of chum and pink salmon in five regions of the North Pacific. Correlation coefficients of RCs with RFs were larger than those of RCs with CIs, although the correlation coefficient of particular variables varied among regions. Climate affected salmon stocks as indicated by significant relationships with various terrestrial and ocean climate factors on a regional scale. These results suggest that no single CI or RF controls salmon abundance in all regions; however, global climate changes could affect regional climate directly and regional salmon abundance indirectly. A warming trend in the North Pacific might affect the long-term change in salmon abundance. The mechanisms controlling regional salmon abundance must be understood better to forecast successfully future conditions for Pacific salmon stocks, because the response of salmon stocks to global climate change varies among regions.


2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (5) ◽  
pp. 1861-1880 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaohui Ma ◽  
Ping Chang ◽  
R. Saravanan ◽  
Raffaele Montuoro ◽  
Hisashi Nakamura ◽  
...  

Abstract Local and remote atmospheric responses to mesoscale SST anomalies associated with the oceanic front and eddies in the Kuroshio Extension region (KER) are studied using high- (27 km) and low-resolution (162 km) regional climate model simulations in the North Pacific. In the high-resolution simulations, removal of mesoscale SST anomalies in the KER leads to not only a local reduction in cyclogenesis but also a remote large-scale equivalent barotropic response with a southward shift of the downstream storm track and jet stream in the eastern North Pacific. In the low-resolution simulations, no such significant remote response is found when mesoscale SST anomalies are removed. The difference between the high- and low-resolution model simulated atmospheric responses is attributed to the effect of mesoscale SST variability on cyclogenesis through moist baroclinic instability. It is only when the model has sufficient resolution to resolve small-scale diabatic heating that the full effect of mesoscale SST forcing on the storm track can be correctly simulated.


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