August 14, 2020 — Last October, lobstermen fishing off the coast of southern New England noticed the lobsters getting more active. That’s fairly common, says Mark Sweitzer, a commercial fisherman out of Port Judith, Rhode Island.
“It’s not unusual for there to be a big pop of lobster in September or October,” says Sweitzer. “Fall’s our best fishing.”
But along with the lobster came something more unusual: a temperature spike on the seafloor, about 150-200 feet down. The temperature jumped from about 50 degrees to 60 — “a big, big change,” says Sweitzer — and stayed there for 38 days, from October 10 to November 15.
Sea surface temperature can change rapidly, rising or falling with strong winds or a storm. But at the bottom, temperature changes much more slowly. “So to get a temperature change that big on the bottom, that is major,” says Sweitzer. “Something caused that to happen. That wasn’t a few warm nights.”