April 17, 2020 — Climate change is warping the West Coast marine ecosystem. Warm waters are driving species north. Acidification and deoxygenation are threatening coastal species.
Fishermen are intimately familiar with these impacts. When the marine heat wave of 2014 and 2015 – dubbed “the Blob” – raised water temperatures for months on end, fishermen saw landing revenues of salmon and hake drop. That heat wave foreshadowed the increased and more severe heat waves that are likely to come.