Climate Change: The role CCAMLR can play and

projections and CCAMLR response options

Contribution by NorwayOlav Rune Godø

My talk• Climate change in general– UN climate panel etc• Norwegian ambitions (Plan 2012-2022)• Experience in north• Climate change in Antarctic• Harvest and management under climate change• CCAMLR’s role• How can it be pursued

UN – climate panel

• Warming temperatures, and declining pH and carbonate ion concentrations, represent risks to the productivity of fisheries and aquaculture

• no long-term trend in large-scale currents Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), IndonesianThroughflow (ITF), the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC), or the transport of water between the Atlantic Ocean and Nordic Seas

UN – climate panel (cont)

• pH impact on calcification organisms• Rapid changes within ocean sub-regions have

already affected distribution and abundance• Local stressors (pollution and other human

impacts) combined with climate change bad mixture

• Changes to ocean generating new challenges for fisheries, as well as benefits (high agreement).

Norwegian research effort in Antarctica 2013-2022

Norway has responsibility and competence within particularly two areas:

• Knowledge on krill-based ecosystems

• Knowledge building on changes in ice mass – how it interact with the ocean

Ch30, Hoegh-Guldberg et. al (2014)

MORE H+ AND MORE CO2

***MORE BICARBONATE***

Ch30, Hoegh-Guldberg et. al (2014)

Ch30, Hoegh-Guldberg et. al (2014)

Ch30, Hoegh-Guldberg et. al (2014)

Ch30, Hoegh-Guldberg et. al (2014)

Ch30, Hoegh-Guldberg et. al (2014)

Northern experience

Sundby and Nakken 2008

Kjesbu et al. 2014

Cod resist climate change

• Exotic fish species appears under climate warming

• Stay for relatively short time

• Cod maintained its role as a major target species independent of climate

Enghoff et al. 2007

Unpredictability

Ice sheet break down at Larsen B during few weeks in 2002

West Antarctic - melting

Warm deepwater penetrates under the ice shelf and cases increased melting from beneath in west Antarctic

East-Antarctica and Dronning Maud Land

• Exceptionally high snowfall in DML compensating for the mass loss from West Antarctic

• Natural variation or climate change?• Is monitored by satellite, radar, ice cores and meteorology

Krill

Antarctic - krill

• Atkinson et al.2004

• Climate impact major ecosystem components and function

• Are salps replacing krill under global warming?

The Southern Ocean – a modified ecosystem

• Two centuries of human modification: Whaling, sealing, fishing pressure

• Commercial exploitation of krill-dependent species and subsequent biomass removal:– Antarctic fur seals ~200 000 tonnes– Whales ~37.4 million tonnes– Finfish ~unknown

• Prey biomass ’release’ ~154 million tonnes per year – mostly by whales

• Additional krill utilized by other predators (penguins not harvested?)

• Post-harvest recovery of whales > increased competition > decreased penguin population

”Krill surplus hypothesis”

“Climate-induced habitat modification Hypothesis”

• 2010 –2013 : 160 billion tonnes (bt) of ice loss (McMillan et al. (2014). GeophysRes Lett. DOI 10.1002/2014GL060111)– 31% increase on 2005 –2011 – Asymmetrical loss –West Antarctica (134bt), East

Antarctica (3bt), WAP (23bt)– Heterogeneous circumpolar loss of krill breeding

habitat –a ‘real’ loss in absolute krill abundance ?

Variability

• Predicting future scenarios, however, is complicated by an intense 55 inter-annual variability in recruitment success and krill abundance (Flores et al. 2012)

• critical knowledge gaps need to be filled – the factors influencing recruitment – the resilience and the genetic plasticity of

krill life stages

(Flores et al. 2012)

No question – these issues will impact CCAMLR!

• Are CCAMLR able to handle changes?

• Is applying the precautionary principle the only viable way to go?

• Can CCAMLR play a more proactive role?– Remove knowledge gaps– Support environmental and ecological

monitoring?

The proactive role

• CCAMLR manage fisheries

• Organise research

• Regulate research fishing proposed by members

• These are all contributions to sustainability

• But are they adequate/proactive efforts towards future challengers posed by climate change?

”Expect the unexpected!”• This is Bill Ricker’s advise

• CCAMLR need to prepare for it

• With CCAMLR’s ecosystem focus, management may run into problems when not knowing

• Can CCAMLR’s operational capacity be utilized more actively to support knowledge on climate change?

• Can CCAMLR do something? Yes we can!

CCAMLR has an impressive sleeping operational capacity

• A large fleet of longliners and trawlers operate all over Antarctic

• Their capacity to collect data is underutilized

• Can also be used to operate moorings, drifters and other equipment

• Enhance coverage in time and space

Use MPAs to support knowledge and data

• Introduction of MPAs have met substantial debate and resistance

• They could become important instruments in support of our knowledge base

• Requires rethinking of the operational strategy of the MPA

How?• Advances in technology may transform fishing

vessels to research vessel collecting physical, biological and chemical data

• Running acoustics on krill trawlers is a good example of hat can be achieved

• Automatic loggers with a variety of sensors can be attached to trawls and longlines profiling the whole water column

• Hull mounted sensors may log surface and weather condition

Reporting

• Small data sets by satellite directly to land base

• Larger data sets are transferred when Ethernet is available

Utilising SOOS

• Cooperation with SOOS to organise data might give a CCAMLR an important data collection role

• And Antarctic a more complete monitoring database

• CCAMLR efforts can limit the negative impacts of time – space gaps in present data.

http://www.soos.aq/

Enhancing legitimacy of CCAMLR fisheries regulation

• Involving stakeholders creates understanding– Informing– utilizing

• Supporting the knowledgebase and

• Strengthen the monitoring basis for adequate regulation

Organisational implications?

• Probably– SC might need restructuring– Tighter interaction between commission and

SC might be required– CCAMLR better integrated with other

Antarctic science and management organisations

• But CCAMLR as a consensus organisation is needed and will prevail

Acknowledgement

• Svein Sundby, IMR, Bergen

• Kit Kovacs, NPI, Tromsø

• Howard Browman, IMR, Bergen