# Presentation: 281275

## Fisheries and the EnvironmentFATE

- A NOAA Fisheries Oceanographic Program
- Supporting NOAA’s mission to ensure the sustainable use of US fishery resources under a changing climate

**Notes:**
Bill, my impression from the meeting was that our NOAA statutory responsibilities are very important in the presentation relative to climate.  Also, we are to be a united NOAA front, rather than emphasizing the individual agencies (NMFS).  To that end I added the EEZ as the backdrop to the title page, thinking that you might want to say a few words about our statutory responsibilities. 

## Ocean Ecology Observing Systems

**Northeast Bottom Trawl Survey Program (conducted since 1963)**
**SEAMAP (Southeast Area Monitoring and Assessment Program; 1981)**
**CaLCOFI (California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigation; 1949) **
**Walleye pollock (Bogoslof Island area of the Bering Sea since 1988)**
**Walleye pollock (Shelikof Strait area of the Gulf of Alaska since 1981)**
**Eastern Tropical Pacific Dolphin surveys (1972)**

- The sophistication and predictive capability of stock assessments are dependent upon the input data derived from LMR surveys.  Because NOAA Fisheries’ LMR surveys serve as the backbone of some of the world’s longest marine biotic time-series, they are managed as long-term, multi-ocean, sustained, observing systems.  Regional examples:

**Notes:**
Bill – the following talking points were recently generated for an inventory of NOAA’s observation systems.
Conducted since 1963, the Northeast Bottom Trawl Survey Program includes components designed to collect data on food habits in a multi-species survey.

The Southeast Area Monitoring and Assessment Program (SEAMAP) is a State/Federal/university program for collection, management, and dissemination of fishery-independent data that began in 1981.

Established in 1949, the California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigation (CalCOFI) time-series monitors the physics, chemistry, biology, and meteorology of the California Current ecosystem.

Winter surveys of spawning Walleye pollock (i.e., the largest single commercial fishery in the U.S.) abundance have been conducted annually in the Bogoslof Island area of the Bering Sea since 1988 and in the Shelikof Strait area of the Gulf of Alaska since 1981.  Summer pollock abundance in the Bering Sea and Pacific whiting abundance off the West Coast have been surveyed triennially in conjunction with bottom trawl surveys for these and other groundfish species since 1977.

Eastern Tropical Pacific Dolphins: In the eastern tropical Pacific, eight species of dolphins are taken incidentally in the international tuna purse seine fishery. Populations of these dolphin species and their stocks or subspecies have been studied since 1972 in work that supports requirements of the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the International Dolphin Conservation Program Act. Long-term surveys provide information on stock structure and dynamics, population abundance levels, distribution, and preferred habitat of these dolphins. NMFS is also developing alternative tuna fishing methods that do not affect dolphins.

## Effects of Oceanic-Atmospheric Variability

**Species replacements coincide with changes in climate in the Gulf of Alaska.**
**These decadal oscillations (i.e., regime shifts), cause natural perturbations of ecosystem productivity and, hence, affect coastal fishing communities.**
**Requires community-based, interdisciplinary studies to predict and mitigate the social and economic effects of long-term climate variability on fisheries-dependent coastal communities.**

## FATE IS A NEW FY02 NOAA PROGRAM

**GOAL:  Adapt resource and ecosystem management systems to a changing ocean climate**
**Builds on the understanding generated by past fishery oceanography programs, but differs by being highly focused on the delivery of products supporting Federal Management Plans.**
**Delivers time series of **ecological indicators** to be used in assessment models and other scientific evaluations related to fishery management.**

**Notes:**
Additional items include:

Synthesis of ecological indicators to provide early warnings of shifts in productivity of key marine resources.  

Climate forcing identified by incorporating local indicators into an ocean-basin synthesis.  A basin scale focus as well as on regions within the basin.

An iterative research program with continual evaluation, update and synthesis.

Delivery of useful indices after first years of work.

Using initially existing data streams and surveys to create and update indicators.

Involvement of fisheries resource analysts to assure assessment models, allocation models, and harvest guidelines are sensitized to changes in ocean climate.

Timely delivery of FATE products to FATE@noaa.gov.

##   TYPICAL FISHERY OCEANOGRAPHY PROGRAM

**Unidentified responsibility for the time series**

******  ****TYPICAL FISHERY OCEANOGRAPHY PROGRAM**

**GENERAL CONCEPT  **
**“****Understand **
**recruitment**
** ****variability”**

**Broad eclectic measurement program**

**Improved or additional linkages**

**Maintain & update time series linkages**

******  ****FATE**

**Provide provisional linkage and maintain time series**

**Study Potential Linkages**

**Undefined payoff to management**

**NARROW FOCUS Environmental links to stock assessments and other scientific evaluations related to management**

**Integrate into stock assessments and harvest guidelines**

**Notes:**
Cartoon illustrates the difference between FATE and a typical fishery oceanography program.  Note that the linkage to assessment or other scientific evaluations related to management are established early on, while in a traditional fishery oceanography they are undefined, as is who shall maintain the time series (dashed line).  Also note two-headed arrow indicating feedback between assessment modeling and environmental linkages.

## FATE FY 02-03 PROGRAM

**Develop 20-50 year time series of ecological indicators including:**
***Biological Responses******, growth, reproduction, distribution, and recruitment***
***Ecosystem productivity******, zooplankton, chlorophyll, community structure***
***Physical indices******, new biological effective indicators and adaptations of large scale climate indices to meet regional requirements***
**Sensitize stock assessment models and harvest guidelines to climate change by incorporation of indicators**

**Notes:**
There are three kinds of ecological indicators Biological response (based on such things as
creating time series of growth rates from otoliths of long-lived species, and egg and larval 
abundances and distributions, etc.), ecosystem productivity and physical indicators.  Those
planned to be developed in FY02 and FY03 are listed in greater detail below:

Develop Time Series Biological Response Indicators 
Somatic growth, Alaskan salmon, sablefish, Pacific hake and various rockfishes
Reproductive response, Pacific hake, California market squid, El Nino response
Identify recruitment indicator time series for sablefish, walleye pollock, winter spawning flatfish (Alaska), various rockfishes (Central California), fishes, shrimps and lobsters (Southeastern Atlantic), cod and haddock on George’s Bank (Northeastern Atlantic)
Develop Indicators of Ecosystem Productivity
Zooplankton indicators of ecosystem productivity (Oregon)
Ichthyoplankton indicators of geographic shifts in pelagic communities (California)
Time series of the position of TZCF 1997 – present (Hawaii)
Time series of N. Pacific surface chlorophyll 1998-present (Hawaii)
Develop Key Physical Indicators
Interdecadal productivity indicators for sardine harvest guidelines (California)
Time series of sea surface height from satellite altimetry 1993-present for the N. Pacific (Hawaii)
Time series of subsurface temperature at several depths for the N. Pacific, 1952-present (Hawaii)
Time series of biologically effective upwelling, 1946-present (West Coast)
Time series of transport and water mass of California Current, 1946-present (West Coast)
Large-scale North Pacific Transport, 1946-present
Develop Web Page and Data Servers
Assure wide dissemination of ecological indicators
Improve utilization of environmental data for management fate.noaa.gov:  web page on-line by September 2002
Live Access Server (LAS) – centralized site for data distribution

## 	Policy linked to decadal variability in sardine productivity

******	****Policy linked to decadal variability in sardine productivity**
******	****If mean drops to 16.85********C, allocation drops to 5% of the harvestable biomass**

**Notes:**
The next four slides (5, 6, 7 and 8) are examples of our leading ecological indicators to give the audience a better idea of FATE products that will be developed.

This slide illustrates how the decade variability in productivity of sardine (higher recruitments in warm years) is integrated into climate proactive harvest policy for sardines.  Right now we are very close to calling for a reduction from 10% to 5% depending on the value for the 3 year in 2002 mean.  Climate sensitive harvest guidelines need to be developed for most of our major stocks.

Some background –

We learned from this exercise.  We are not satisfied with the Scripps pier temperature alone as an indicator, and one FATE project is to develop a more robust suite of indicators.  This is preferable, because as harvest policy drops, the index comes under intense scrutiny.  A single indicator can be criticized because a single measurement changes to some degree over time, the way it is measured and so forth.  (The pier was lengthened, temperature measured electronically instead of a bucket, etc.)

## 	NOI is a regional adaptation of the SOI, that better explains salmon productivity

******	****NOI is a regional adaptation of the SOI, that better explains salmon productivity**
******	****Alaska and northwest salmon respond to shifts in ocean climate but differ in sign**

**Notes:**
There are two important points to be made regarding slide 6.

1.	As Ann Hollowed showed years ago, there is a coherent pattern in the recruitment
	among stocks in the Pacific Basin but they may differ in sign as do these northern
	and southern stocks of salmon, (one has a negative the other a positive correlation with
	the NOI).  We in FATE hold the belief, that examinations of the collective patterns in recruitment
	among stocks over time can provide a holistic benefit in sensing climate-based shifts
	 in productivity on a basin-wide basis.

2.	In addition to creating new indices, part of the work of FATE is to adapt broad scale
	indices to give better fits to regional ecosystem dynamics.  In this case the southern
	oscillation index SOI which is based on a pressure difference between Darwin and
	Tahiti is replaced by the NOI, difference in pressure, between Darwin and a high
	pressure area off California.  The NOI gave a better fit to the patterns observed
	in salmon because the NOI contains some of the regional variability.

## Slide 9

**Notes:**
Shift in the transitional zone front great affects migratory routes of tuna and turtles and the potential for bycatch.  A series of indices will be developed by FATE on seasonal positions of the front over time, chlorophyll concentration, mixed layer depth and etc.  This is an important example for FATE because it shows how some of our stocks cover broad oceanic areas, and that the outcome of climate shifts in migratory routes, not only could affect how many albacore or swordfish there might be, but could affect undesirable bycatch and allocations between countries.

## A FATE Ecosystem Indicator: This function can be used to predict returns of salmon the following year; copepod anomalies from 2001 predict that about 10% of the juvenile salmon that went to sea in spring 2001 will return to spawn in fall 2002.  

_**A FATE Ecosystem Indicator**_: This function can be used to predict returns of salmon the following year; copepod anomalies from 2001 predict that about 10% of the juvenile salmon that went to sea in spring 2001 will return to spawn in fall 2002.

**Notes:**
Regional zooplankton surveys have been supported by NOAA fisheries and by GLOBEC over the years.  Time series of these survey data have a great potential for evaluating the status of marine ecosystems and how they change with ocean climate.  Most of these data have not been analyzed and collections processed with this goal in mind, but that is one of the goals of FATE.  The slide illustrates that the abundance of certain species of Northern Pacific Copepods are well correlated with salmon survival and hence will be a powerful FATE index.

## RELEVANCE

**FATE develops climate-sensitive ecological indicators, maintains the time series, examines them for climate trends, and facilitates their incorporation into models used for fisheries and ecosystem management.**

**Notes:**
While we were suppose to rate the program according to the climate change goals, this idea fell out of favor in the premeeting with the recommendation to simply describe the program.  The team mentioned about the best you and I can expect is that they will remember that FATE exists and roughly what it does.  So I used the last slide to summarize what FATE is about.

I wrote the sentence on slide 9 in response to Goals 2, Enhance observation and monitoring systems, and Goal 3, improve decision making and decision making support tools.  Clearly there is no better way to improve decision making and be climate proactive than to develop climate sensitive harvest guidelines.