April 23, 2024 — Robust agricultural harvests of delicious fruits and vegetables dazzle every summer menu, but, in New England, seafood wears the crown and the premier gem is the lobster. Like everything on planet earth however, rising temperatures threaten the abundance of these resources, just as lobstering season is a couple of weeks away from switching into full gear.
An ever-warming planet is playing havoc with the intricately interconnected web of marine life. The Copernicus Climate Change Service whose climate research is supported by the European Union reports this month that “ocean temperatures have now been at unprecedented warm levels for over 12 months” and that for the month of March, the average temperature for the surface of oceans globally had hit a historic high of 21.07 degrees Centigrade, or 69.92 degrees Fahrenheit.
Just as climate has long stressed human populations and driven migration, marine populations are stressed and in search of survivable climates too. In New England, scientists and lobstermen alike are studying and living the impacts. The wide focus is on the Gulf of Maine, an area that extends from Cape Cod in Massachusetts to Nova Scotia in Canada. David Reidmiller, Director of the Climate Center at the Gulf of Maine Research Center in Portland, Maine, has found that the rates of ocean warming in the Gulf of Maine are three times the global average, “faster than 95% of the world’s oceans.” In 2021, for the first time, the Gulf of Maine experienced a marine heat wave for the entire calendar year.