ON THE surface of the sea conditions can be atrocious, with freezing gales and enormous swells. Slip beneath the waves and descend into the blue, however, and you enter another world, a more tranquil place where the violence of the waves above turns into an ever-gentler to-and-fro, and the temperature never falls much below freezing.
We tend to assume that life in the oceans is insulated from the vagaries of the weather. But it is turning out that what goes on above the water’s surface is intimately linked to the survival of the creatures below it, even far down in the depths of the ocean.
A single storm hitting at just the right moment, or a particularly icy winter, can lead to bumper catches of fish or traps full of crabs a few years later. Longer term climatic changes can also lead to huge swings in fish numbers. The biggest fisheries disaster so far, the collapse of the Grand Banks cod fishery off Newfoundland, Canada, might have been linked to such factors.
A single storm can lead to bumper catches a few years later
With many other fisheries teetering on the brink, these new insights could prove vital. If we can predict how fish numbers will vary naturally months or even years in advance, managers can reduce quotas before stocks are decimated, or increase them when conditions are favourable.
It all began in 1989. Richard Beamish was attending a meeting in the Soviet Union when a …
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