Impacts of Global Warming and Ocean Acidification on Oceans and Fisheries

The United States has jurisdiction over 3.4 million square nautical miles of ocean territory in its exclusive economic zone (EEZ), an area larger than the combined land area of all fifty states (USCOP 2004). This vast territory encompasses a rich diversity of living marine resources that are important to the economy, quality of life and the health of coastal and ocean ecosystems, and all are significantly affected by the growing impacts of global climate change (NMFS 2008). Unsustainably high levels of fishing are the predominant cause of fish population collapses around the world and overfishing remains the single biggest threat to marine biodiversity and ecosystems worldwide (Pauly et al. 1998; Jackson et al. 2001; Pauly et al. 2002; Myers and Worm 2003; Hutchings and Reynolds 2004; Worm et al. 2006; Jackson 2008), but overfishing can also render both fish stocks and ecosystems more vulnerable and less resilient to the rapidly growing impacts of climate change (Hsieh et al. 2006; Brander 2007; Fogarty et al. 2008; Anderson et al. 2008; Rijnsdorp et al. 2009).

Coastal and ocean ecosystems that are already weakened and stressed by other assaults are likely to be less resilient to climate change and less likely to respond to restoration efforts (Vaquer‐Sunyer and Duarte 2008). The growing possibility of non‐linear, abrupt changes in marine productivity and ecosystems due to the synergistic effects of large‐scale fisheries and climate change demands a precautionary approach to fisheries management (Brander 2007; Worm et al. 2009). More fundamentally, a comprehensive national ocean and climate change strategy is needed that aims to prevent dangerous climate change while enhancing the capacity of marine species, ecosystems and the economies they support to adapt to unavoidable changes in the coming decades.