Big Data, Big Opportunity for Climate & Fisheries

Announcements | Dec 31, 2019

Our collective ability to accurately assess and forecast fish abundance is critical to the biological and economic sustainability of the Gulf of Maine.

This is an image with a blue background and several simply drawn fish, drawn in white.

As waters warm, we know fish populations are going to respond. The more accurately we can predict this behavior, the better we can support the fishermen and fisheries managers who rely on good data to make decisions.

Lisa Kerr, Ph.D. Associate Professor, UMaine School of Marine Sciences

Dr. Lisa Kerr, who chaired the steering committee for the workshop, discusses the group's work:

This is the staff photo for lisa kerr
Lisa Kerr, Ph.D. Associate Professor, UMaine School of Marine Sciences

In the years since we first observed that the Gulf of Maine is warming faster than almost any other part of the global ocean, we’ve focused much of our research at GMRI on understanding the impacts of warming on our fisheries. Warmer water causes species shifts and productivity changes, challenging our fisheries management system to adapt to a 'new normal.'

We also know our peers are looking at similar questions, so we called them together for a meeting to talk about our individual research and how we might combine our efforts to address the grand challenge of managing fisheries in a changing climate. Together, we discussed ways to link our otherwise-siloed models of climate impacts, regional oceanography, fish populations, and humans.

Overall, the meeting was an encouraging beginning to an exciting collaboration. Next, we’ll share our ideas with fisheries stakeholders in the region to solicit their feedback on the science they need to inform better decisions in a changing Gulf of Maine.

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