Climatic Temperature Changes and Commercial Yields of Some Marine Fisheries

Abstract

A review of the literature suggests need for re-examination of the bases for some reported climatic temperature–fish productivity relationships. In some instances adequate provision does not appear to have been made for changes in the amount of fishing, in economic conditions or in the efficiency of the fishing fleets. Possible fortuitous relationships should be avoided by exhaustive tests of the representativeness of both the temperature and fishery data. They can arise from many sources such as the use of air temperatures to represent subsurface conditions, particularly for short-term periods. Due to the considerable variation in temperatures between stations and between seasonal temperatures at any given station there is a high chance of attaining significant but invalid correlations. Also, the methodology of relating temperature with fishery data, such as time-lagging and correlation analyses, should conform with the life history of the species investigated.Consideration of the above leads to the belief that any possible effects of climatic-temperature changes upon the Pacific and Atlantic halibut stocks appear to have been over-whelmed by fishing.