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Currents Influence Fish Stocks: More Cod in the Barents Sea
Source: ENN, Date: , 2010
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in the 1920s and 1930s, the Barents Sea was teeming with cod. That was
before its waters substantially cooled off in the decades to follow.
Now, with ocean temperatures higher once again, fishermen are seeing
more fish. The entire North Atlantic warmed up during the 1920s
and 1930s. More fish appeared not only in the Barents Sea but also off
Iceland and Greenland. This warm period reached its peak at the end of
the thirties and lasted until roughly 1960, when the waters began
turning colder again -- and fisheries resources declined once more.
In recent years, the North Atlantic has shown signs of a new period of warming. Warm waters then and now Ken
Drinkwater is a senior research scientist at both the Institute of
Marine Research and the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, located
in Bergen. He and his colleagues have been studying the causes of this
latest warming trend -- and are finding many answers by poring through
the literature describing conditions 80-90 years ago. Dr
Drinkwater rejects the common explanation that the Barents Sea is
getting warmer because the atmosphere in the polar regions has warmed. "This
warming is primarily due to currents -- a greater amount of warm
Atlantic water is flowing into the North Atlantic and up to the Barents
Sea," asserts Dr Drinkwater. That is what happened in the first
half of the 20th century. Although there were large year-to-year
temperature fluctuations then, the North Atlantic on the whole remained
more temperate than normal until well into the 1960s. "Many
people recorded what they observed taking place in the ocean nearly 90
years ago. If we can determine what occurred during that warming
period," believes Dr Drinkwater, "we will better understand what is
going on today, plus we'll have more reliable input as to what we can
expect in the future." More and larger fish farther north The warm period between the world wars led to some major changes in the ecosystem. In the Barents Sea and off Iceland and Greenland, cod catches reached record highs. "In
the 1920s and 1930s, the Arcto-Norwegian cod stock moved north. Fishing
of cod was organised around Bjørnøya (Bear Island in the Svalbard
archipelago) and more cod were being caught in Russian waters as well.
The fishermen were catching cod that were about 50 per cent larger than
in the previous decades."
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