Redistribution
of Fish Catch by
Climate Change
A Summary of a New Scientific Analysis:

Cheung, W.W.L., Lam, V.W.Y., Sarmiento, J. L., Kearney, K., Watson, R., Zeller, D. and Pauly, D. 2009.
Large-scale redistribution of maximum fisheries catch potential in the global ocean under climate
change. Global Change Biology.
OCTOBER 2009
Global climate change is expected to affect
marine fisheries productivity because of
changes in water temperature, ocean currents
and other ocean conditions. Marine
fisheries are an important food source, and
changes in the total amount or geographic
distribution of fish available for catch could
affect food security. Changes in marine food
supply due to climate change, however, were
previously unknown.
William Cheung and his coauthors used
models that linked ocean conditions with
the geographic range of species to predict
changes in potential catch under low and
high greenhouse gas emissions scenarios.
They found that globally, the maximum total
catch potential in the year 2055 remained
essentially unchanged from current levels
under both scenarios. But catch potential
changed within regions, and the magnitude