Companies that ignore climate change risks lose market value

By Sarah DeWeerdt, Anthropocene, April 23, 2024

A first-of-its-kind study showed that companies that proactively respond to climate risk are rewarded by the market; those that don’t, are punished.

Adapting to climate change and preparing for the green transition entails significant costs for businesses—but is likely to be a good investment, according to a new study. The analysis, one of the first to quantify how climate risk is priced in financial markets, suggests that companies that fail to respond in a proactive way to climate threats lose market value.

In the past there has been relatively little research on climate finance topics. Researchers have lacked good methods to measure climate risk exposure, at least for equity assets (as opposed to real estate where projections of flood risk, sea level rise, and so on serve as clear-cut indicators of climate risk).

The new paper fills the gap with the help of earnings calls, which corporations typically conduct once a quarter to update investors, journalists, and others about their financial situation. Because corporations only have time to convey the most salient information in these brief calls, anything they say about how they perceive their climate risk and what they are doing in response is likely to be highly relevant. The calls also happen on a regular basis, yielding a close to real-time measurement of how climate risk changes and evolves.

Source: Li Q. et al. “Corporate Climate Risk: Measurements and Responses.” The Review of Financial Studies 2024.

Underestimating the willingness of our fellow citizens to act on climate

Image: ©Anthropocene Magazine

The world is in a state of pluralistic ignorance, a new international study finds. And dispelling the unfounded pessimism is a key to tackling climate change.

By Sarah DeWeerdt, Anthropocene, February 20, 2024

 Nearly 70% of the global population would give up 1% of their household income to stop climate change, according to a new survey of nearly 130,000 people in 125 countries.

 “The results are tremendously encouraging,” says study team member Armin Falk, a behavioral economist at the University of Bonn in Germany. “A very high proportion of the world’s population is willing to incur a personal economic cost to fight climate change and demands intensified political action.”

 But most people underestimate others’ willingness to contribute to fighting climate change, the study suggests – and this erroneous perception could hamper climate action. This misunderstanding of others’ beliefs, which scientists call ‘pluralistic ignorance,’ could hamper climate action. This is because in many situations, people exhibit so-called ‘conditional cooperation,’ meaning that they are more willing to contribute to collective action when they think others are too. In fact, the researchers found evidence of conditional cooperation in the current study: At both the country and the individual level, there was a correlation between willingness to contribute 1% of income and perceptions of others’ willingness to contribute. 

The researchers aim to probe the reasons people underestimate other people’s willingness to act against climate change, Falk says. “Understanding more about the origins of this perception gap may help us design more effective policies in the future.” 

Source: Andre P. et al. “Globally representative evidence on the actual and perceived support for climate action.” Nature Climate Change 2024.

The Heat Stays On

“In the Atlantic Ocean, Subtle Shifts Hint at Dramatic Dangers.” New York Times

In early December 2023 as more than 150 countries gathered in Dubai for COP28, scientists announced that 2023 was set to be the warmest year on record.

The combined effects of El Niño and human-caused climate change are the prime culprits.

In July, the New York Times and other news outlets reported that “warming could push the Atlantic past a ‘tipping point’ this century.” (Raymond Zhong, New York Times, July 25, 2023)

Ominously, the news was not that portions of the Gulf Stream could collapse but that it is likely could occur sooner than expected.

“The last time there was a major slowdown in the mighty network of ocean currents that shapes the climate around the North Atlantic, it seems to have plunged Europe into a deep cold for over a millennium.

“That was roughly 12,800 years ago, when not many people were around to experience it. But in recent decades, human-driven warming could be causing the currents to slow once more, and scientists have been working to determine whether and when they might undergo another great weakening, which would have ripple effects for weather patterns across a swath of the globe.”

The concept that a warming atmosphere could cause an arm of the Gulf Stream to collapse is more than a little mind-boggling. But the concept is graphically portrayed in an earlier New York Times piece, “In the Atlantic Ocean, Subtle Shifts Hint at Dramatic Dangers” (Moises Velasquez-Manoff and Jeremy White, March 2, 2021). The interactive presentation illustrates the potential that melting Greenland ice will disrupt the delicate balance of the Gulf Stream, the all-important ocean conveyer belt, with dramatic impacts to the world’s climate.

It's too easy to dismiss these global impacts as beyond our control but continued inaction by our elected leaders suggests that we are making it too easy for them to dismiss these concerns.

Go to Tomorrow’s Fish to learn more about what we as anglers can do.

Why Are Nature-Based Solutions on Climate Being Overlooked?

Villagers in the Demak district of Java, Indonesia help to maintain wooden sea walls. COURTESY OF WETLANDS INTERNATIONAL

Fred Pearce, Yale Environment 360, April 18, 2023

Nature-based initiatives, such as planting mangroves and revitalizing wetlands, have proven effective in making communities more resilient to climate change. But international funding has shortchanged such solutions in favor of more costly and less efficient engineering projects.

There are a “growing number of analyses and reviews of the effectiveness of habitats as natural defences,” writes Siddharth Narayan, now of East Carolina University. Hundreds of local projects to restore ecosystems on coastlines and mountains, in river valleys, forests, and grassy plains, have proved their worth in using restored nature to boost the resilience of millions of people to the ravages of onrushing climate change.

“Nature-based solutions are cited in more than half of the climate pledges made by governments. But actions lag behind intentions.”

Most are cheaper and more effective than any engineering alternatives, with more spinoff benefits for ecosystems and fewer downsides. But the political will and funding that could turn pilot projects for nature-based climate adaptation into policy norms benefitting hundreds of millions more people are still largely absent.

A clear message from science

A glacier near Les Diablerets in Switzerland was covered to reflect the sun and prevent melting.Fabrice Coffrini/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Somini Sengupta , New York Times, March 20, 2023

“There is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a livable and sustainable future for all (very high confidence).” This is the most striking sentence in a 37-page summary in the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It tells us what’s possible. It tells us the stakes.

 The report has been compiled by hundreds of scholars and approved by the representatives of 195 countries. The italicized phrase represents the authors’ degree of certainty. The italics are theirs, not mine.

 The report is sobering, gut-wrenching and above all, practical. Its clearest takeaway: The continued use of fossil fuels is harming all of us, and harming some of us a lot more.

 More information:

IPCC AR6 Synthesis Report Climate Change 2023

The Latest IPCC Report: What is it and why does it matter? The Nature Conservancy,

Breathless Oceans

Ivo da Costa, a Ph.D. student at the University of Porto, subdues a blue shark, which will be fitted with sensors to study how ocean oxygen levels affect its behavior. W. CORNWALL/SCIENCE

Warming oceans are running short of oxygen, and the fiercest marine predators are already feeling the effects.

Warren Cornwall, Science, February 2, 2023

Climate change is leaching oxygen from the ocean by warming surface waters. Two other climate-related threats to the seas—ocean acidification and marine heat waves—get more attention from scientists and the public. But some researchers believe deoxygenation could ultimately pose a more significant threat, making vast swaths of ocean less hospitable to sea life, altering ecosystems, and pushing valuable fisheries into unfamiliar waters. As global warming continues, the problem is sure to get worse, with disturbing forecasts that by 2100 ocean oxygen could decline by as much as 20%. Sharks—fast-moving fish that burn lots of oxygen, sit at the top of food chains and crisscross huge ocean expanses—should be sensitive indicators of the effects.

This is why a group of U.K. and Portuguese scientists took to the sea aboard Garcia Habas’s boat off the Canary Islands in November 2022.

Socioeconomic resilience to climatic extremes in a freshwater fishery

Photo courtesy of Rick Wollum

“Trout fisheries have enormous cultural, economic and ecological importance in Montana and worldwide, yet even Montana’s resilient trout fisheries could be vulnerable to future climate change. ”

— Timothy Cline, a USGS scientist and the paper’s lead author

The northern Rocky Mountains in Montana support some of North America’s most popular trout fisheries, valued at more than $750 million year annually, representing more than 20% of the spending by tourism in the state. This economic value is primarily driven by nonresident fishers who spend, on average, $690 fisher-day, as compared to $90 fisher-day by resident fishers. However, the cold-water fisheries that support this substantial tourism industry may be at risk as this region warmed at twice the global average rate over the past century, contributing to warmer water temperatures, lower summer stream flows, and increasing frequency and severity of drought events.  

Researchers with the U.S. Geological Survey, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks and the University of Montana co-authored the study titled “Socioeconomic resilience to climatic extremes in a freshwater fishery,” published in Science Advances. 

“Trout fisheries have enormous cultural, economic and ecological importance in Montana and worldwide, yet even Montana’s resilient trout fisheries could be vulnerable to future climate change,” said Timothy Cline, a USGS scientist and the paper’s lead author, in a news release.  

Climatic changes are shifting the abundance and distribution of trout species across the region. The combined effects of these climatic changes may significantly affect popular trout fisheries by shifting both fish and fishers across space, with potentially severe socioeconomic consequences. Therefore, understanding how climate change will affect social, economic, and ecological components of cold-water fisheries will be critical for enhancing resilience and adaptation of fisheries and local communities. 

Using Montana FWP recreation monitoring data to analyze how climate change impacted 3,100 miles of the state’s rivers between 1983 and 2017, the study found that the concentration of anglers doubled overall within that 34-year time period, and severe drought conditions significantly impacted the distribution of fishing pressure across the study area. Among the study’s findings: 

As flows dropped and water temperatures rose, anglers moved to other areas where waters were colder. These cold-water river segments  supported 10 times more anglers than warm-water segments.  

The study found that nonresident fishing pressure was more variable across space and time than resident anglers, indicating that nonresident anglers were more flexible to adapt to climate-induced changes in fishing conditions and management closures. In contrast, resident anglers were less willing/able to travel to other areas in response to drought, and they often continued to fish along rivers by their homes, even when the conditions were stressful on trout. 

While Montana’s fishing economy has demonstrated resilience during past periods of drought — particularly those in the late 1980s, early 2000s and in 2017, the study’s authors expect new challenges will emerge as the climate warms throughout the coming decades. “Montana’s fisheries are renowned for their trout, and trout require cold, clean, connected habitat to survive,” he said. “As the climate warms, a lot of those attributes are changing rapidly.” 

Read the Study: Cline, T., C. Muhlfeld, R. Kovach, R. Al-Chokhachy, D. Schmetterling, D. Whited, and A. J. Lynch. 2022. Socioeconomic resilience to climatic extremes in a freshwater fishery. Science Advances 8(36).

When the river breaks

The historic 2022 flood in Yellowstone National Park washed out roads. Flooding in Soda Butte Creek caused significant damage to several sections of road along the Northeast Corridor between Cooke City, Montana, and Tower Junction. The Northeast Entrance Road opened on October 15, 2022, after repair work was completed to this and other flood-damaged sections. Image credit: NPS

In the aftermath of the devastating 2022 Yellowstone floods, we examined historical river flows. Could our insights help predict future events?

By Ally Marrs, Teodora Rautu, David Thoma, Ann Rodman, Mike Tercek, and Andrew Ray

 In June 2022, rivers in Yellowstone’s Northern Range exceeded century-long flood records. The flooding caused widespread damage and disrupted park operations, forcing the park to temporarily close to visitors. In the wake of the flood, many were left wondering what caused this natural disaster, if it could happen again, and whether there was a way to know what was coming ahead of time. We analyzed the historical flow record and worked on modeling the conditions that led to the disaster. Our findings can help alert scientists and land managers about future floods.

Map of Northern Yellowstone National Park showing major river systems, locations of flood damaged infrastructure (red and orange dots), and U.S. Geological Survey and other hydrologic gaging stations (blue boxes). Major damage (red dots) refers to structural damage or other significant damage that required extensive repairs. Minor damage (orange dots) refers to repairable or non-structural damage to infrastructure. Image credit: NPS

In the aftermath of this flood, we examined past flow records to better understand its magnitude in the context of history. For three of the Northern Range rivers (the Gardner, Lamar, and Yellowstone), we have about one hundred years of flow data collected at permanent U.S. Geological Survey streamflow gauging stations. Historical data provide insight on short- and long-term flow variation in free-flowing rivers like these. We gained context for the 2022 flood by comparing it to previous flow records. 

We found that the Yellowstone River 2022 flood exceeded all previous floods at the Corwin Springs gauge since 1890. The volumetric flow rate measured by the gauge was 50 percent greater than the previous record, which translates to 17,000 cubic feet per second higher. The June 2022 floods were referred to as a “500-year flow event.” But this doesn’t mean a flood of this size couldn’t happen again sooner, particularly since precipitation extremes are becoming more frequent. It means that there is a 1-in-500 chance of a flood of this size happening in any given year. 

We analyzed trends in high flows over time and found that flows in the 95th percentile—those that are greater than 95 percent of daily flows—have been increasing in size. This means that a 95th percentile flow in 2022 was larger than a 95th percentile flow in 1922. Not only is the amount of water flowing through these rivers changing, but also the timing of high flows. The peak flow date—the day of the year when the highest flow occurs—has been getting earlier over time for all three major Northern Range rivers. There are year-to-year variations, but on average, peak flow is occurring one day earlier every 11 years.

Read the full article.

Understanding partisanship nuances may be the key to climate action

A new study finds that resistance to climate policy among Republicans is driven far more by negative partisanship than expressive partisanship

 By Sarah DeWeerdt, January 10, 2023

A major source of Republican opposition to climate policy is the desire of some—not all—Republicans to stick it to Democrats, according to a new study.

U.S. climate policy lags behind that of other similar nations, and political partisanship is known to be one of the major barriers to climate action, especially at the federal level. Republicans tend to oppose policies to mitigate climate change, while Democrats tend to support them.

But partisanship has nuances—and that has implications for climate policy, the study shows. “Not all partisans are created equal,” says study coauthor Adam Mayer, a postdoctoral researcher at Michigan State University in East Lansing.

 Some people are really attached to their partisan identity, while others are not, reflecting varying degrees of what researchers call ‘positive’ or ‘expressive’ partisanship. Meanwhile, some people are less invested in their own party’s policy success than in beating the other side, a phenomenon termed ‘negative’ partisanship.

To find out more about how those details affect support for climate action, Mayer and his collaborator, Keith Smith of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, analyzed responses to an online survey of 1,600 people in the United States.

Read on at Anthropocene

Source: Mayer A.P. and E.K. Smith “Multidimensional partisanship shapes climate policy support and behaviors.” Nature Climate Change 2023.

Algae farms as the future breadbasket

Image: Cyanotech Corporation/Anthropocene

There’s an opportunity to feed the world by farming fast-growing, low-resource, photosynthesizing algae on marginal coastal lands globally, researchers show in a recent study.  

These nutrient-rich algae, farmed along coastlines in pounds of seawater pumped up from the ocean, could produce enough food to feed 10 billion people in the next 25 years—“while simultaneously reducing our demands for arable land and freshwater,” says Charles Greene, lead author on the new Oceanography study and professor of earth and atmospheric sciences at Cornell University… 

Algae could do this using one-tenth of the area required by conventional food sources to produce the same amount of food. Meanwhile, much of that land would be in places, like coastal desert environments, where it doesn’t compete with other uses.

Greene et. al. “Transforming the Future of Marine Aquaculture: A Circular Economy Approach.” Oceanography. 2022.

Sargassum continues to choke the Caribbean

Waves of sargassum mixed with flotsam and jetsam, Belize, April 2022 (W. Tilt photo)

Numerous news channels have recently reported on the near-record amounts of seaweed smothering Caribbean coasts from Puerto Rico to Barbados, killing fish and other wildlife, choking tourism and releasing stinky, noxious gases.

More than 24 million tons of sargassum blanketed the Atlantic in June, shattering the all-time record, set in 2018 according to the University of South Florida’s Optical Oceanography Lab. And unusually large amounts of the brown algae have drifted into the Caribbean Sea.

Scientists say more research is needed to determine why sargassum levels in the region are so high, but the United Nations’ Caribbean Environment Program said possible factors include a rise in water temperatures as a result of climate change, and nitrogen-laden fertilizer and sewage that nourish the algae.

“This year has been the worst year on record,” said Lisa Krimsky, a university researcher with Florida Sea Grant, a program aimed at protecting the coast. “It is absolutely devastating for the region.”

She said large masses of seaweed have a severe environmental impact, with the decaying algae altering water temperatures and the pH balance and leading to declines in seagrass, coral and sponges.

Experts first noted large amounts of sargassum in the Caribbean Sea in 2011, and the problem has occurred practically every year since then.

Sargassum in moderation helps purify water and absorb carbon dioxide and is a key part of the habitat for fish, turtles, shrimp, crabs and other creatures. It is also used in fertilizer, food, biofuel, construction materials and medicinal products. But it is bad for tourism and the environment when too much accumulates just offshore or on beaches.

For more information on sargassum read The “Massive influxes of Pelagic Sargassum in the Wider Caribbean Region” fact sheet describing the science, law and policy, and management challenges of Sargassum. The project was facilitated by the National Sea Grant Law Center and the NOAA Center for Coastal and Marine Ecosystems, and the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies at Texas A & M.

Toxic Takeover

Everything you need to know about Harmful Algal Blooms

Slimy, scummy, ninja-turtle green cyanobacteria. Water staining, breath-stopping red tide blooms. Brown, spider-web growth and muck that smothers beneficial seagrasses. Some can have toxic, directly lethal impacts while others slowly lead to environmental destruction by upsetting the natural order in the system, but they all threaten clean water. When these blooms grow beyond balanced levels, they impact for the health of Florida’s waters and their water-based economy.

In Toxic Takeover: a full breakdown of the Harmful Algal Blooms bullying Florida’s waters, Captains for Clean Water explains how algal blooms in Florida’s waters have become an increasingly consequential challenge. The article examines what exactly are algal blooms, why are they a threat, what makes some more dangerous than others, and most importantly, what causes them, why have they been getting worse, and how can we mitigate them?

Hot Trail Summer

Image: Kostiantyn Li, Upslash

The impact of a warming climate on climbing and trail sports

For the millions of Americans who love to get outdoors the longer days and sunny weather of summer make it a favorite season. But summer as we know it is changing. The Hot Trail Sumer, created by Protect Our Winters (POW) in collaboration with master’s students at UC Santa Barbara’s Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, examines how climate change impacts the rock climbing, trail running, hiking and mountain biking communities.

The report outlines what many of us already know: that no matter the season, a warming world has profound implications for outdoor recreation. The report comes down to three main impacts that will hinder our ability to recreate:

• Threats to Access. Several climate impacts have been demonstrated to limit access to trail systems, including wildfires, erosion, extreme heat, sea-level rise and tree die-off. As global temperatures continue to rise, these five factors are increasingly expected to prevent trail sports enthusiasts from accessing the places they love.

• Threats to Health. Climate change will threaten the health and well-being of those who recreate outdoors. Hotter temperatures increase the risk of heat-related illnesses such as heat exhaustion and heatstroke. Poor air quality due to wildfire smoke, increased dust levels due to drought and higher surface-level ozone concentrations mean that those who want to recreate outdoors in the summertime will face a difficult choice: stay inside and forgo the mental health benefits of recreating or get outside and risk our health by exposing ourselves to dangerous conditions.

• Threats to the Experience. Climate change will diminish the experience of getting outdoors. Poor air quality, water-starved ecosystems and charred swaths of land mean that the summer landscapes we’ve come to know and love won’t look like we remember them. As a result, decreased access to recreational opportunities will concentrate crowds in places that remain open.

If these trends continue, they’ll make it harder for us to get outside during the summer months and force us to be more selective about when and where we recreate. It could even mean the permanent loss of some recreation areas. And as our options for summer recreation dwindle, the $450 billion outdoor industry that supports millions of jobs, livelihoods and families will also take a hit. This could spell disaster for the small, rural towns that rely on the outdoor recreational economy.

But, as Protect Our Winters make clear, the goal of this report is not to add to the piles of literature that tell you how climate change is negatively affecting the world—it’s to provide a common cause for summer sports enthusiasts to take action on. And that’s where organizations like Protect Our Winters can help. POW’s mission is to help passionate outdoor people—just like you—protect the places you love from climate change by connecting you with opportunities to channel your passion for the outdoors into meaningful climate action. Collectively, America’s 80 million trail sports athletes and 5 million rock climbers have the power to influence U.S. climate policy, and there’s no better time to start than now.

Yellowstone flooding: Why is it happening now?

A river runs through it. The Gardner River reclaimed it right to meander on June 13th.

SJ Keller, National Geographic, June 16, 2022

Rain falling on snow caused [the recent] floods, events that will become more likely as temperatures warm.

Yellowstone National Park evacuated more than 10,000 visitors on Tuesday after flash floods roared through the park. Roads and bridges washed away, sewage lines broke, and the park’s gateway communities were cut off from roads. Yellowstone remains closed, and the north entrance gate will likely not reopen this season.

Even as scientists and land managers are taken aback by the magnitude of the floods, unprecedented in 100 years of recorded history, they recognize the similarities to the events their data predicted. They just weren’t anticipating them to occur this year.

“As a scientist I would say, well, this is completely in line with what we might expect,” says Cathy Whitlock, a paleoclimatologist and lead author of the Greater Yellowstone Climate Assessment, the first such report ever done on an ecosystem. “As a human being I would say I'm shocked.”

While it will take more research to confirm if climate change made this flood event more extreme, the 2021 Greater Yellowstone Climate Assessment predicts significant changes in precipitation, including when it arrives and what form it will take. Scientists expect more spring rain, less winter snow. The assessment also predicts increasing annual precipitation in Yellowstone National Park.

Changes are already documented in the assessment. Since 1950, spring precipitation in the region has increased by 17 percent in April and 23 percent in May. Snowfall has declined even as overall annual precipitation has increased. That means rather than a slow release of melt water to valleys during the summer months, rainfall tends to combine with melting snow, causing riskier events like the recent flood.

In mid-June, the jet stream carried in exceptionally wet weather dropping rain on the unusually snowy mountains. Warm temperatures helped melt the snowpack. And as temperatures warm, these rain-on-snow events are projected to become more frequent at higher elevations in western North America, while lower snowpack will make them less frequent at low elevations.

 Yellowstone’s Superintendent Cam Sholly said during a Tuesday press conference he’s been advised that the flood could be a thousand-year event. One of the highest recorded stream flow measurements for the Yellowstone River was 31,000 cubic feet per second, recorded in the 1990s. Stream flow readings during the recent flood were as high as 51,000 cubic feet per second.

“What happened this week was not anything I was expecting,” says Rodman. June precipitation this year is now at more than 400 percent above average in the parts of Montana and Wyoming that include Yellowstone. “We had rain that went all night and all day and it was kind of torrential. We just don’t get that kind of rain here.” On Monday, she watched from her house in Gardiner, just outside Yellowstone’s north entrance, as park employee housing slid into the Yellowstone River.

A hot ocean is a hungry ocean

Warren Cornwall, Anthropocene, June 15, 2022

As temperatures climb in the ocean, so do the appetites of its inhabitants. Fish living in balmy, tropical waters consistently eat more than their cold-water brethren, according to new research, a finding that points to one way climate change could alter marine ecosystems as fish grow more hungry. 

“Warmer waters tend to favor animals high in the food chain, which become more active and need more food—and it’s their prey who pay for that increased activity,” said Emmett Duffy, director of the Smithsonian’s Marine Global Earth Observatory network and a leader of the research. “This suggests that warming seas could see big shifts in the life of sensitive seabed habitats.” 

The oceans have become a dumping ground for much of the excess heat trapped by rising levels of greenhouse gases, absorbing an estimated 90% of the extra heat. Among other things, that has raised overall ocean temperatures to the highest ever recorded and is thought to be contributing to a surge in the number of underwater heatwaves that have baked coral reefs and triggered massive seabird die-offs. 

It has long been known that a fish’s metabolism revs up as the temperature rises. Unlike mammals, the body temperature of fish adjusts to match the levels of its surroundings, and staying warmer requires burning more calories. 

What was less well understood is the strength of the relationship between temperature and fish appetite across entire continents. Nor did scientists have a clear picture of how that connection shaped surrounding ecosystems.

Climate Change and Pacific Coast Salmon

Ocean caught Chinook salmon. Photo courtesy of Nate Mantua.

NOAA Fisheries scientist Nate Mantua discusses how climate change and anchovies are impacting salmon on the West Coast.

How has climate change impacted salmon in the western United States?

We've talked a lot about marine heat waves in the last seven years and we never talked about them in the 1990s or early 2000s. We just had a series of marine heat wave events that negatively impacted salmon in places like Alaska. Twenty years ago, we thought warming would probably be good for them, but that’s not true now. Warming in Alaska’s large salmon rivers—like the Yukon River and the Kuskokwim—has come with chronically low numbers of chum and Chinook salmon. These rivers traditionally supported subsistence and commercial fisheries that provide reliable and nutritious sources of food, critical to rural Alaskan culture.

Things here locally, in California, that are really troubling to see are extended drought periods. Small coastal streams won't connect with the ocean because of a lack of rainfall, runoff, and streamflow. Adult salmon and steelhead have a limited window of time to enter their home streams in order to spawn in winter so that their eggs incubate in cold water, and their offspring hatch at times and in places where juvenile rearing conditions are suitable. During extended dry spells larger sections of our coastal streams are dry for unusually long periods of time, resulting in less rearing habitat. In the larger watersheds like the Klamath, Sacramento, and San Joaquin, drought has come with sharply limited supplies of the cold water that salmon need. This has intensified chronic conflicts with other uses for freshwater. These drought conditions have contributed to widespread declines in salmon abundance.

So you’re seeing these impacts inland—in streams and rivers. What about in the ocean?

Things that I've seen out of the ocean have been equally astounding in the last few years. Something that has come as a great surprise is the resurgent abundance of northern anchovies off Central California. Up until five years ago, the conventional wisdom was that California anchovies would be most abundant during the years with strong upwelling and cold ocean temperatures. But there was a sudden boom in anchovy abundance that started around the beginning of the marine heat wave in 2014. Anchovy abundance and spatial distribution kept expanding through the record warm period that extended into 2016. Right now the Central stock of California anchovies looks to be at a record high. Our La Jolla lab’s ecosystem survey in 2021 found that abundant anchovies dominated the forage fish community from San Diego to Cape Mendocino. It's just another surprise. We look to have crossed an ecosystem threshold we didn't know existed—or at least, I didn’t know existed!

If that continues, I would imagine that more and more West Coast salmon will be exposed to this incredible anchovy abundance. And they love anchovies, they grow really well on it. The salmon out in the ocean that I saw last year looked fat and healthy.

The average diet of salmon off California in the 1980s was diverse, including anchovy, sardine, krill, and other organisms, as shown above. Credit: NOAA Fisheries/John Field.

In recent years anchovy have dominated salmon diets, with fishermen finding salmon stomachs almost entirely full of anchovy, as shown. Credit: NOAA Fisheries/John Field.

Does this abundance of anchovy raise any concerns?

Yes, it has created some new conditions for our salmon that we need to address and better understand. Thiamine deficiency is a new threat that was documented for the first time in 2020 in Central Valley Chinook salmon. California hatchery staff saw young salmon, or “fry,” behaving weirdly and dying at unusually high rates at multiple hatcheries. Fish health experts looking into this discovered that it was a thiamine deficiency. After putting symptomatic fry in a vitamin bath, sure enough, the fry recovered within a day, and started feeding and behaving normally.

There are at least two ideas proposed for thiamine deficiency in salmon. One focused on salmon feeding on forage fish that contain thiaminase, an enzyme that degrades or destroys thiamine in the gut cavity of the consumer. The other is that lipid-rich diets lead to oxidative stress that depletes salmon’s thiamine stores. A heavy anchovy diet looks to be problematic for salmon because anchovies are both lipid (fat) rich and they contain elevated levels of thiaminase. So both these ideas point towards anchovies being a problem when they dominate a predator’s diet. We have salmon gut content data from 2020 and 2021 showing that anchovies were by far the dominant prey item for Chinook salmon caught in ocean fisheries off California’s Central Coast. Fishermen reported the same for salmon caught in 2019.

How can we solve this problem?

You can treat fish by giving them vitamin supplements before they spawn or by putting the eggs in a vitamin bath before they're fertilized and the offspring will be okay. But we can't do that in natural spawning areas. We don't have that ability to get our hands on all the fish. So if this persists it could drive affected salmon populations more in the direction of hatchery dominance.

We've partnered a lot with other agencies and organizations on research and hatcheries management. We’ve rapidly developed insights and treatment options for thiamine deficiency. They’ve come up with treatments that really work for fish that are in their hatcheries. Two hatcheries are injecting prenatal vitamins into the spawning females to reduce the impacts. But reliance on hatcheries comes with a lot of risks in terms of the lack of diversity in these fish, something that has been noted as a threat to the resilience of salmon populations that are already struggling for other reasons.

What else can be done to help salmon adapt to climate change?

On the good news side, we know what actions are needed to make things better for salmon, and some major actions are happening. Four big dams on the main stem of the Klamath River are going to be removed starting in either 2023 or 2024. Those dams have been there for about a century, blocking hundreds of miles of habitat—the coldest, highest elevation habitat in that system. That could be really dramatic for improving habitat options and quality for salmon in the Klamath River. Making some space for climate change is the way I think of it.

Other important actions include those that leave water in our rivers at times of year when the fish need it. People put great demands on California’s freshwater, and conflicts between in-stream and out-of-stream uses have been a lot more difficult to sort out, especially in drought years.

Ocean warming will scramble fish species diversity

Lance Anderson, Upsplash

As reported in National Fisherman, the effects of  climate change are already shifting ocean fish populations, and a new study by Rutgers University scientists showed that species-by-species predictions of fish movements are likely overestimating their ability to adapt to changing conditions.

The study, published April 13 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, points out how climate-driven changes to food web relationships could change over time and predicts changes in the food web could prevent those species from thriving in their new geographic ranges.

“What that suggests from a fisheries perspective is that while the species we fish today will be there tomorrow, they will not be there in the same abundance. In such a context, overfishing becomes easier because the population growth rates are low,” said study coauthor Malin Pinsky, an associate professor in Rutgers’ Department of Ecology, Evolution and Natural Resources in a statement describing the findings.

“Warming coupled with food-web dynamics will be like putting marine biodiversity in a blender.”

— Malin Pinsky

Climate stories don’t have to be depressing to be effective

A new study shows how positive stories about characters whose actions match their intentions change the minds of readers

By Sarah DeWeerdt, Anthropocene, March 1, 2022

Stories in which characters take action with an intent to protect the climate make readers more likely to support climate policies and more likely to say they’ll take pro-environmental actions themselves, according to a new study.

The findings provide hints about how to construct climate-related stories—both fiction and nonfiction—to best reach readers. Fiction about climate change, or “cli-fi,” tends toward the dystopian, and nonfiction climate narratives often focus on victims of climate change. But that leaves out a whole set of potentially persuasive stories, the study suggests.

“Short, realistic, and personalized stories about commonplace heroes taking pro-environmental actions in their everyday lives—because they are motivated to address climate change—can resonate with people,” says study team member Ganga Shreedhar, a behavioral economist at the London School of Economics in the UK.

How Climate Change Is Disrupting the Global Supply Chain

Shipping containers stranded in floodwaters at the harbor in Riesa, Germany. THOMAS PETER / REUTERS / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Jacques Leslie, Yale Environment 360, March 10, 2022

The impact of the Covid pandemic on the global supply chain has been widely reported. But extreme weather, from floods to wildfires, is increasingly hammering ports, highways, and factories worldwide, and experts warn these climate-induced disruptions will only get worse. 

The Covid pandemic has rightly received most of the blame for global supply chain upheavals in the last two years. But the less publicized threat to supply chains from climate change poses a far more serious threat and is already being felt, scholars and experts say. 

The pandemic is “a temporary problem,” while climate change is “long-term dire,” said Austin Becker, a maritime infrastructure resilience scholar at the University of Rhode Island. “Climate change is a slow-moving crisis that is going to last a very, very long time, and it’s going to require some fundamental changes,” said Becker. “Every coastal community, every coastal transportation network is going to face some risks from this, and we’re not going to have nearly enough resources to make all the investments that are required.”

Anglers are seeking solid climate policy

The following is a OpEd authored by AFFTA Fisheries Fund Board member Hilary Hutcheson, which appeared in numerous Montana newspapers, January 28, 2022. Together with the referenced article and study it provides a vivid example of how climate change intertwines with regional water supply, fisheries health and abundance, as well as local and regional economies.

Stretch of the North Fork of the Flathead River in Montana (photo courtesy of Brett French, Billings Gazette)

The center seat of a fishing boat often doubles as a soapbox, where professional guides like me might spout frothy yarns, broadcast ironclad instructions and proclaim our program as “the way.” But when we shut the heck up, we generally find the bow and stern occupied by folks who inspire us to listen…and learn.

One of my most memorable days listening and learning happened two and a half years ago as I guided scientist Clint Muhlfeld, Ph.D. and journalist Chris Solomon on my home water, the North Fork of Montana’s Flathead River. Chris, on assignment with National Geographic Magazine, was interviewing Clint and me on how climate change impacts fisheries. [Climate change comes for a favorite summer pastime: fishing, National Geographic, August 27, 2021]

As we discussed the decline in native trout populations, Clint, a research aquatic ecologist with the United States Geological Survey, explained how warming glacial waters and shifting streamflow regimes are agreeable to non-native rainbow trout, enabling their hybridization with native westslope cutthroat trout. He said this union could be detrimental to the persistence of native trout in the one of the most intact freshwater ecosystems in North America.

At the time, Clint also gave us the scoop that 20-thousand fish surveys collected over the last three decades were being compiled into a pending science paper about the impacts of climate change on native fish across the northern Rockies.

Recently, Clint emailed me to let me know that the peer-reviewed paper had been released. And, sure enough, the study [Climate change and expanding invasive species drive widespread declines of native trout in the northern Rocky Mountains, USA] , published in Science Advances, reveals how the warming hurts native bull trout and cutthroat uniquely, offering new insight for resource managers.

The science paper details how native westslope cutthroat possess key genetic adaptations allowing them to withstand increasing temperatures. And, that hybridization breaks up the co-adapted gene complexes that are programmed for the locally adapted traits, so climate-induced hybridization is likely to reduce their fitness and ability to adapt to changing climate conditions as they’ve done for millennia, even during warmer periods. Meanwhile, the paper explains, it’s not the non-native species bumming the bull trout in local streams and rivers, it’s that rivers with rising temperatures and less streamflow become uninhabitable to the threatened char species. The study shows us how climate change can directly and indirectly affect habitats and species interactions.

The paper reflects next-level modeling to predict more accurately into the future and gives us ammunition to fight to protect the resource. I say “us” because while it’s our elected leadership that imparts environmental policy, it’s up to us as stakeholders to support those measures.

Good guiding comes by way of far more than shoveling water and selecting proper stonefly patterns. In the last decade, more guides have stepped up to testify on the changes we’ve witnessed from the center seat, including altered runoff, reduced streamflow, species hybridization, damaged spawning, increased nutrient loads and water temperatures that are fatal to fish. So, it’s wildly encouraging to see a detailed report supporting opportunities for conservation.

I’m proud to work on cold-water fisheries that contribute nearly $650 million each year to our state’s economy. Healthy fish are crucial to our economy, to the health of the greater ecosystem and to our cultural richness. That’s why fly-fishing industry leaders nationwide are joining conversations about green banking, electric vehicles, updating the electric grid, sustainable agriculture, carbon neutrality and carbon pricing.

I’m grateful to peers who helped my fly shop, Lary's Fly and Supply in Columbia Falls, achieve carbon neutrality and I’m thrilled that more fly shops are pursuing this action. My business is reliant on clean rivers. And, as a parent to three adult children who I’m fortunate enough to work alongside, it’s not possible for me to fly-fish without addressing the climate crisis. Conversely, I would not understand environmental impacts so directly if not for my family’s intimacy with the river.

In fly fishing, we work within thin margins, acknowledging that environmental policy changes are also made at the margins. With approximately 50-million members of the outdoor community in the United States, we have a mega impact at those thin margins when we influence legislators to approve climate crisis solutions.

 Right now, this means voicing to the U.S. Senate and President Biden that the powerful and growing outdoor community wants climate provisions to remain in the Build Back Better bill, which is still under negotiation. There are easy ways to express this, including through this link on the Citizens Climate Lobby site: https://citizensclimatelobby.org/get-loud-take-action/

 Equipped with scientific facts, Montana grit and support from each other, we are all in the center seat. We’ve listened, we’ve learned and we have the authority and responsibility to guide our elected leaders toward solid climate policy to protect our livelihoods and legacy.