State of Oceans Presentation
Integrated Harvest Planning Committee
24 November 2010
Richmond
Jim Irvine/Bill Crawford
DFO Science Branch
1
State of the Ocean, Pacific Region
Edited by Bill Crawford
and Jim Irvine, DFO
Pacific Region.
63 contributors for 35
individual reports
released in June 2010.
Advisory report in English and French (~37 p); Research document in English (~150 p).
http://sci.info.pac.dfo.ca/PSARC/OSR's/OSR.htm
Google: PSARC Ocean status
State of Oceans reports
available from:
http://www.pac.dfompo.gc.ca/science/psarcceesp/osrs/index-eng.htm).
Features Of State of Oceans Reports
Offer timely overview of changes in marine conditions in
the previous year (and forecasts if possible) in the
context of many years of observations.
Offer insight into marine ecology, ocean climate and
fisheries.
Temperature Patterns longer term globally
NOAA says 2009
“tied with 2006 as
the fifth warmest on
record, at 0.56°C
above the 20th
century average”.
The past decade
was the warmest in
1880 to 2009.
Anomalies at right
are relative to 1971 2000.
Courtesy NOAA
National Climate Data
Centre
But SST in our region was cooler than average in 2009
Cumulative Impacts
•  Unlikely to be a single
environmental effect.
•  All life stages have varying
survivals.
• Additive consequences
across life stages and
generations.
•  Piece-meal approach is
weak. An integrated
approach is required.
Courtesy Scott Akenhead
Multiple Scales within Environmental Signals
•  Oceanic: PDO, El Niño/La Niña, etc.
•  Regional: Fraser R and estuary
Queen Charlotte Sound
Strait of Georgia
•  Local: Chilko Lake and watershed
•  How much of small-scale signals is
from larger scales? Are signals nested or are there non-linear
“interactions”?
•  Will confounded environmental data hide mechanisms behind
correlations?
Courtesy Scott Akenhead
Do marine conditions in Queen Charlotte
Sound limit the marine survival of Chilko
sockeye salmon? Jim Irvine PBS/DFO and
ASL Borstad and IOS scientists
21
The regression equation MS = 0.0232 + 0.0267 Ln Chlorphyll a predicts a marine
survival of about 4.2% for Chilko sockeye returning in 2010, with corresponding
confidence limits of 3.5% and 4.8%, and 2.1% and 6.4%.
Preliminary survival estimate for 2010 returns (08 chlorophyll) was ~6%, higher than the
forecast of 4.2%
Cold
C
Warm
W
Cold
Warm
9
Warm
Cold
Cold
BC waters have cycled through cold to warm to cold
in the past year and a half, in direct response to
changes in Pacific-wide weather patterns. We are
presently in a La Niña, because ocean temperature
on the Pacific Equator is much colder than normal.
Equatorial upper-ocean temperature anomalies (°C) 180-100°W
Large positive anomalies associated with El Niño decreased beginning in late
February 2010, becoming negative in late April. The large negative anomalies
since June 2010 are consistent with the development and strengthening of La
Niña.
Courtesy NOAA
El Niño
La Niña
Courtesy NOAA Climate
Prediction Center
The CFS ensemble mean (heavy blue line)
predicts La Niña conditions into Northern
Hemisphere summer 2011.
2009 – a year of changing conditions
26
Ocean temperatures off the west coast on Canada were cooler than
normal early in 2009 but warmed through the summer and autumn. By
early 2010 most regions along the American and Canadian west coast
were above normal in temperature. The shift from cool to warm is
likely in response to a change from La Niña to El Niño conditions in
the tropical Pacific and a shift in ocean temperature patterns all across
the North Pacific Ocean, called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation.
Zooplankton off the coast of Oregon and BC in the spring dominated
by cool water groups that might be a better food source for endemic
(native) marine life. These cool-water zooplankton dominated for the
past three years of cooler ocean temperatures, although the dominant
groups shifted to warm-water species in late summer 2009, along the
outer continental shelf of southern Vancouver Island.
27
2009 Cont’d
Biomass of adult herring off Vancouver Island was low, attributed to
several factors, including warmer ocean temperatures prior to 2007, when
these adults were young and most sensitive to ocean temperatures and to
the predators and prey.
Catches of Albacore tuna in Canadian waters in 2009 were lower than
average, attributed to these cooler ocean temperatures.
Humboldt squid appeared off the west coast in record high numbers in
2009 (but were not found in 2010). They were most abundant at several
hundred metres depth, just seaward of the continental shelf among
schools of Pacific hake, and were likely feeding on hake. Many of these
squid were also observed closer to shore, and scores were found dead on
west coast beaches.