Toronto, Toronto, Ont. Illustrates the process with recent work done on the water temperature linkage. A Wild Salmonid Watch could provide a framework for monitoring climate change and its effects on salmonids on a hemispheric scale. Some fisheries and aquaculture enterprises and communities would benefit, others would suffer, with economic and population dislocation probably inevitable in many parts of the world. Fish in streams in this area may be particularly vulnerable to extirpation or extinction due to global warming, because some streams are sufficiently warm to be near the lethal thermal limits for the fish and because the fish cannot migrate northward should warming occur.
Evidence suggests there is little likelihood of behavioral or genetic adjustments.
Examines implications by considering changes extrapolated to regional scales and selecting a few detailed case studies to illustrate important points. Action requires establishing priorities for information needs, determining appropriate temporal and spatial scales for modeling effects, and accounting for interactive changes in physical and biological cycles. A policy response can be derived when these results are integrated with social needs and human population constraints. The following article on policy is also part of the issue. The typical, incremental, remedial policy adjustment of governments and agencies is unsuited to some of the changes in fisheries resource dynamics that might result from climatic change.