Warm Water Blob Could Impact Gulf of Alaska Pollock Fishery
SEAFOODNEWS.COM [KTOO] By Matt Miller - March 14, 2016
Fisheries biologists are worried that many of last year’s new pollock around Kodiak Island may not have survived recent warm ocean temperatures.
The findings of a study on the issue were announced in January at the Pacific Anomalies Workshop in Seattle.
Most people are familiar with the recent warm water anomaly by its nickname of The Blob. It’s a giant mass of warm water in the northeast Pacific Ocean that features temperatures of 2 to 8 degrees Fahrenheit above normal down to a depth of 300 feet. The Blob has persisted over the last two years and stretched from the Gulf of Alaska to Baja California. It’s different than El Niño, which is a phenomenon of equatorial warming in the Pacific.
“There was a remarkable decline in the pollock larvae that we’re seeing in that survey,” said Russell Hopcroft of the University of Alaska...
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