Climate Change Effects on Fishing Communities

Climate change is affecting Alaskan communities in increasingly disruptive ways. Alaska air temperature is warming twice, and in some areas, three times as fast as the global average, and has already experienced more record high temperatures in the last decade than ever before.1 Under a higher warming scenario, the average high temperature is predicted to increase by 4 to 8 degrees in the summer, and 10 degrees in the winter. Increased precipitation is also predicted to occur in all areas of the state. Declining and increasingly volatile fisheries, marine heatwaves, reduced sea ice, sea level rise and flooding, toxic algal blooms, extreme weather events, thawing permafrost and ocean acidification are some of the most significant consequences occurring due to these climatic changes and leading to conditions of increased uncertainty across the region.2

Annual temperature change over the past 50 years. Credit Rick Thoman - ACCAP

These climate driven events are having profound effects on fisheries and the communities that rely on them.3 Alaska fishing communities were deeply affected by climate-driven changes including increased food insecurity, risk of marine hazards, social and economic uncertainty, as well as decreased economic livelihood, marine safety, community wellbeing. In 2014-2016, an unprecedented warming event in the North Pacific Ocean (known as “The Blob”) led to prolonged ecosystem impacts across trophic levels in the Gulf of Alaska, including drastic declines in Pacific cod and Pacific salmon, sea-bird and marine mammal die-offs4, and harmful algal blooms.56 Communities dependent on these fisheries resources incurred substantial losses in catch and revenue with little time to prepare.7 In the Bering Sea, warming temperatures have led to a suite of ecological shifts including decreased sea ice extent, shifts in species distributions, and declines in key fisheries.8 A marine heatwave in the Bering and Chukchi seas from 2018 to 2019 precipitated steep declines in important subsistence and commercial salmon runs and an unprecedented mass mortality event for Bering Sea snow crab that led to the closure of one of the most lucrative fisheries in Alaska.9 In turn, this closure led the Indigenous island community of St. Paul, which relies heavily on revenue from this fishery, to declare a cultural, economic, and social emergency.1011 Gradually warming ocean temperatures have also led to changes in abundance and distribution of many groundfish and crab species,121314 as well as marine mammals. In addition to declines in important subsistence salmon species, decreasing sea ice, increasing harmful algal blooms and associated increases in paralytic shellfish poisoning occurrences, marine mammal and seabird bird die-offs are inhibiting subsistence practices with devastating impacts on food security, culture, and knowledge transfer.

Recent Federal fisheries disasters are almost exclusively attributed to extreme environmental events such as these, resulting in billions of revenue loss for the federal government and direct revenue loss from the fishing industry.15 There is a need to understand how these changes will affect fisheries and fishing communities. Beyond these impacts, many community members are also observing additional ecological changes based on their own Local and Traditional Knowledge of the area. These observations are vital to understand broad longitudinal patterns, particularly in data limited areas.1617 (For examples of how Local Knowledge has informed Federal management for certain data-poor fisheries, see rockfish18 and Dungeness crab19 examples; aqua-culture,20 co-management,21 and disaster and risk.22)

The effects of climate change and other disruptions (such as the Covid-19 pandemic) affect the vulnerability and resilience of communities in different ways. The increased frequency of disasters are exacerbating the impacts of individual events and compounding risk to communities,2324 specifically fishing communities.2526 Climate vulnerability is the degree to which a community is at risk of exposure to the biophysical effects of climate change, such as sea level rise or storm events. Increasingly, community climate vulnerability assessments are used to analyze the expected climate impacts, risk, and adaptive capacity. To date, there are no systematic assessments across Alaska communities leading to a patchwork of information for use in preparing for and responding to climate stressors.

The extent to which a community depends on particular marine resources impacted by climate change (across the commercial, recreational, or subsistence sectors) affects community vulnerability and risk. Additionally, a community’s adaptive capacity to offset the effects of climate change can vary based on social networks, income level, economic diversity, and population composition.2728 Adaptive capacity is informed by robust knowledge systems, strong social networks, and economic and institutional support.29 Others also include aspects such as infrastructure, technology, social capital, and good governance.303132

Each community sketch will include discussions of how that community is being impacted by climatic changes, including through fisheries closures, as well as their potential adaptive capacity and risk level given many of the factors outlined here.

In previous versions of ACEPO, community sketches included indices of climate change vulnerability, categorized as exposure to biophysical effects, fisheries resource dependence, and limitation on adaptive capacity. These indices have been removed from the sketches and replaced by narratives of community climate vulnerability. The narrative approach allows for a more robust representation of climate vulnerabilities with specificity that moves away from indicators that in many cases are not relevant for and do not adequately represent a community’s climate vulnerability.

  1. Ballinger, T. J., Bigalke, S., Walsh, J. E., Brettschneider, B., Thoman, R. L., Bhatt, U. S., et al. (2023). NOAA Arctic Report Card 2023: Surface Air Temperature.↩︎

  2. Markon, C., Gray, S., Berman, M., Eerkes-Medrano, L., Hennessy, T., Huntington, H. P., Littell, J., McCammon, M., Thoman, R., & Trainor, S. F. (2018). Chapter 26: Alaska. Impacts, Risks and Adaptation in the United States: The Fourth National Climate Assessment, Volume II. U.S. Global Change Research Program. https://doi.org/10.7930/NCA4.2018.CH26↩︎

  3. Barange, M., Bahri, T., Beveridge, M. C., Cochrane, K. L., Funge-Smith, S., & Poulain, F. (2018). Impacts of climate change on fisheries and aquaculture. United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, 12(4), 628-635.↩︎

  4. Suryan RM, Arimitsu ML, Coletti HA et al (2021) Ecosystem response persists after a prolonged marine heatwave. Sci Rep 11:1–17. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-83818-5↩︎

  5. Suryan, R. M., Arimitsu, M. L., Coletti, H. A., Hopcroft, R. R., Lindeberg, M. R., Barbeaux, S. J., et al. (2021). Ecosystem response persists after a prolonged marine heatwave. Scientific reports, 11(1), 6235.↩︎

  6. Ferris, B. (2023). Ecosystem Status Report 2022: Gulf of Alaska. Stock Assessment and Fishery Evaluation Report.↩︎

  7. Barbeaux, S. J., Holsman, K., & Zador, S. (2020). Marine Heatwave Stress Test of Ecosystem-Based Fisheries Management in the Gulf of Alaska Pacific Cod Fishery. Frontiers in Marine Science, 7, 703. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2020.00703↩︎

  8. Siddon, E. (2023). Ecosystem Status Report: Eastern Bering Sea. Stock Assessment and Fishery Evaluation Report.↩︎

  9. Szuwalski, C. S., Aydin, K., Fedewa, E. J., Garber-Yonts, B., & Litzow, M. A. (2023). The collapse of eastern Bering Sea snow crab. Science, 382(6668), 306-310.↩︎

  10. Farley, E. V., Yasumiishi, E. M., Murphy, J. M., Strasburger, W., Sewall, F., Howard, K., et al. (2024). Critical periods in the marine life history of juvenile western Alaska chum salmon in a changing climate. Marine Ecology Progress Series 726, 149–160. doi: 10.3354/meps14491↩︎

  11. Szuwalski, C. S., Aydin, K., Fedewa, E. J., Garber-Yonts, B., and Litzow, M. A. (2023). The collapse of eastern Bering Sea snow crab. Science 382, 306–310. doi: 10.1126/science.adf6035↩︎

  12. Rooper, C. N., Ortiz, I., Hermann, A. J., Laman, N., Cheng, W., Kearney, K., & Aydin, K. (2021). Predicted shifts of groundfish distribution in the Eastern Bering Sea under climate change, with implications for fish populations and fisheries management. ICES Journal of Marine Science, 78(1), 220–234. https://doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsaa215↩︎

  13. Bernton, H. (2022, April 3). Into the ice: A quest for snow crab in a Bering Sea upended by climate change. Anchorage Daily News. https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/2022/04/03/into-the-ice-a-crab-boats-quest-for-snow-crab-in-a-bering-sea-upended-by-climate-change/↩︎

  14. Szuwalski, C., Cheng, W., Foy, R., Hermann, A. J., Hollowed, A., Holsman, K., Lee, J., Stockhausen, W., & Zheng, J. (2021).↩︎

  15. Bellquist, L., Saccomanno, V., Semmens, B. X., Gleason, M., & Wilson, J. (2021). The rise in climate change-induced federal fishery disasters in the United States. PeerJ, 9, e11186. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.11186↩︎

  16. Carothers, C., Brown, C., Moerlein, K. J., López, J. A., Andersen, D. B., & Retherford, B. (2014). Measuring perceptions of climate change in northern Alaska: Pairing ethnography with cultural consensus analysis. Ecology and Society, 19(4), art27. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-06913-190427↩︎

  17. Marino, E. (2015). Fierce Climate Sacred Ground: An Ethnography of Climate Change in Shishmaref, Alaska. In Fierce Climate Sacred Ground: An Ethnography of Climate Change in Shishmaref, Alaska (pp. 1–122). Univ Alaska Press. https://www.webofscience.com/wos/woscc/full-record/WOS:000374781600008↩︎

  18. Beaudreau, A. H., & Levin, P. S. (2014). Advancing the use of local ecological knowledge for assessing data-poor species in coastal ecosystems. Ecological Applications, 24(2), 244–256. https://doi.org/10.1890/13-0817.1↩︎

  19. Ban, N. C., Eckert, L., McGreer, M., & Frid, A. (2017). Indigenous knowledge as data for modern fishery management: a case study of Dungeness crab in Pacific Canada. Ecosystem Health and Sustainability, 3(8), 1379887.↩︎

  20. Ryan, T. (2009). “S’kuu See”: Integrating Forms of Knowledge. In Aquaculture, Innovation and Social Transformation (pp. 191-204). Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.↩︎

  21. Nakashima, D. J. (1993). 10. Astute Observers on the Sea Ice Edge: Inuit knowledge as a basis for Arctic Co-Management. Traditional ecological knowledge concepts and cases.↩︎

  22. Rai, P., & Khawas, V. (2019). Traditional knowledge system in disaster risk reduction: Exploration, acknowledgement and proposition. Jàmbá: Journal of Disaster Risk Studies, 11(1), 1-7.↩︎

  23. Hayhoe, K., D.J. Wuebbles, D.R. Easterling, D.W. Fahey, S. Doherty, J. Kossin, W. Sweet, R. Vose, and M. Wehner, 2018: Our Changing Climate. In Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States: Fourth National Climate Assessment, Volume II [Reidmiller, D.R., C.W. Avery, D.R. Easterling, K.E. Kunkel, K.L.M. Lewis, T.K. Maycock, and B.C. Stewart (eds.)]. U.S. Global Change Research Program, Washington, DC, USA, pp. 72–144. doi: 10.7930/NCA4.2018.CH2↩︎

  24. Singh, D., A.R. Crimmins, J.M. Pflug, P.L. Barnard, J.F. Helgeson, A. Hoell, F.H. Jacobs, M.G. Jacox, A. Jerolleman, and M.F. Wehner, 2023: Focus on compound events. In: Fifth National Climate Assessment. Crimmins, A.R., C.W. Avery, D.R. Easterling, K.E. Kunkel, B.C. Stewart, and T.K. Maycock, Eds. U.S. Global Change Research Program, Washington, DC, USA. https://doi.org/10.7930/NCA5.2023.F1↩︎

  25. Carothers, C., Brown, C., Moerlein, K. J., López, J. A., Andersen, D. B., & Retherford, B. (2014). Measuring perceptions of climate change in northern Alaska: Pairing ethnography with cultural consensus analysis. Ecology and Society, 19(4), art27. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-06913-190427↩︎

  26. Marino, E. (2015). Fierce Climate Sacred Ground: An Ethnography of Climate Change in Shishmaref, Alaska. In Fierce Climate Sacred Ground: An Ethnography of Climate Change in Shishmaref, Alaska (pp. 1–122). Univ Alaska Press. https://www.webofscience.com/wos/woscc/full-record/WOS:000374781600008↩︎

  27. Himes-Cornell, A., & Kasperski, S. (2015). Assessing climate change vulnerability in Alaska’s fishing communities. Fisheries Research, 162, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fishres.2014.09.010↩︎

  28. Loring, P. A., Gerlach, S. C., & Penn, H. J. (2016). “Community work” in a climate of adaptation: responding to change in rural Alaska. Human Ecology, 44, 119-128.↩︎

  29. Whitney, C. K., Bennett, N. J., Ban, N. C., Allison, E. H., Armitage, D., Blythe, J. L., ... & Yumagulova, L. (2017). Adaptive capacity: from assessment to action in coastal social-ecological systems. Ecology and Society, 22(2).↩︎

  30. Adger, W.N. (2003). Social Capital, Collective Action, and Adaptation to Climate Change. Economic Geography, 79(4): 387-404. https://www.jstor.org/stable/30032945↩︎

  31. Jones, L., Ludi, E. and Levine, S. (2010). Towards a characterisation of adaptive capacity: A framework for analysis of adaptive capacity at the local level. ODI Background Note.↩︎

  32. Visseren-Hamakers, I. J., Razzaque, J., McElwee, P., Turnhout, E., Kelemen, E., Rusch, G. M., ... & Zaleski, D. (2021). Transformative governance of biodiversity: insights for sustainable development. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 53, 20-28.↩︎