{"id":224634,"date":"2022-10-19T13:38:46","date_gmt":"2022-10-19T11:38:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=224634"},"modified":"2022-10-19T13:38:49","modified_gmt":"2022-10-19T11:38:49","slug":"population-crash-cancels-alaska-snow-crab-season-media-falsely-blames-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=224634","title":{"rendered":"Population Crash Cancels Alaska Snow Crab Season \u2013 Media Falsely Blames Climate Change"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The media is abuzz this week<\/a> with stories related to the first-ever cancellation of Alaska\u2019s Snow Crab season for 2022. Media outlets like Bloomberg<\/em> are wrongly attributing the decline in snow crabs to climate change, citing nothing more than opinions offered by favored experts. This is false. The evidence indicates other factors have led to a steep decline in snow crab populations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a Bloomberg<\/em> article, titled, \u201cAlaska\u2019s Snow Crab Collapse Is Likely Tied to Climate Change<\/a>,\u201d writer Zahra Hirji claims:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alaskan officials recently canceled the Bering Sea snow crab season for the first time ever after scientists discovered an unprecedented decline in crab numbers<\/a>. Climate change is the number one suspect in the dropoff<\/em>. <\/strong>(emphasis mine).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re still trying to figure it out, but certainly there\u2019s very clear signs of the role of climate change in the collapse,\u201d said Michael Litzow, shellfish assessment program manager at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which runs an annual survey of Bering Sea snow crab numbers. (Snow crabs are also found in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas off Alaska.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In reality, the climate change link is nothing more than an opinion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another story, sourced from the Alaska Journal of Commerce, republished in the Anchorage Daily News<\/em> (ADN) by Elizabeth Earl, also blames climate change for the crab decline: Scientists point to climate change as likely cause for Alaska snow crab decline.<\/a> Saying: \u201cThere\u2019s no complete consensus about why the stock crashed in the first place. Increasingly, however, the models seem to indicate that it\u2019s due to temperature increases linked to climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No consensus, but let\u2019s trust computer models over actual data. Where have we heard that before? As Climate Realism<\/em> has repeatedly discussed, here<\/a> and here<\/a>, for example, climate models for air temperature are seriously flawed making projections that are far higher than recorded temperatures. There\u2019s no reason to believe sea temperature models would be any better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Multiple factors are contributing to snow crab decline. Long-term climate change is not prominent among them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fortunately, not every media outlet is as gullible as Bloomberg<\/em> or ADN, appropriately attributing the snow crab decline to those other factors like predation, overfishing, and naturally warming waters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Guardian<\/em>, for example, which is almost always blames climate change for anything bad that happens, noted in their story, Alaska cancels snow crab season over population decline<\/a> (emphasis mine):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCauses being researched but likely included increased predation and stresses from warmer water.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

No mention of \u201cclimate change\u201d by the Guardian<\/em>. We\u2019ll return to the \u201cwarmer water\u201d issue later in this article.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back in 2017, when crab populations first started declining, The New York Times<\/em> (NYT) had this to say in China\u2019s Appetite Pushes Fisheries to the Brink<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overfishing is depleting oceans across the globe, with 90 percent of the world\u2019s fisheries fully exploited or facing collapse, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization<\/a>. From Russian king crab fishermen<\/a> in the west Bering Sea to Mexican ships<\/a> that poach red snapper off the coast of Florida, unsustainable fishing practices threaten the well-being of millions of people in the developing world who depend on the sea for income and food, experts say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Surprisingly, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) echoed that point in the story, \u201cIllegal Fishing Puts Crab Populations at Risk<\/a>,\u201d noting \u201cA new WWF study has revealed populations of crab in the Russian Far East are at risk of collapse due to overharvest from illegal fishing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Laughably, Elizabeth Earl, the journalist who wrote the Anchorage Daily News<\/em> story had previously written in February 2022, Bering Sea snow crab deemed \u2018overfished\u2019<\/strong><\/a>:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In October, the National Marine Fisheries Service determined that with its current low numbers, the stock of Bering Sea snow crab \u2014 also known as opilio crab \u2014 is officially overfished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But now Earl is blaming climate change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While so-called experts that have the ear of low-information journalists blame warmer water on climate change, that isn\u2019t true. Rather, an extended La Nina event has increased temperatures in the seas inhabited by snow crabs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an October 2020 at Alaska News Source<\/em> story, titled \u201cStrongest La Ni\u00f1a underway in a decade,\u201d<\/a> reported:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

La Ni\u00f1a is part of the natural climate pattern known as El Ni\u00f1o Southern Oscillation, a scientific term that describes the oscillating temperature changes between the ocean and atmosphere in the Equatorial Pacific. La Ni\u00f1a is known as the cold phase while El Ni\u00f1o is known as the warm phase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most current\u00a0satellite imagery of sea surface temperature<\/a>\u00a0shows the massive La Ni\u00f1a pattern in blue in Figure 1 below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Figure 1: Global Sea Surface Temperature obtained from satellite data. Note the warmer water near Alaska and the huge La Ni\u00f1a event at the equator in blue. Source:\u00a0<\/em>NOAA OSPO<\/a>.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The downside of this particular and ongoing La Ni\u00f1a ocean pattern is that it is affecting the Bering Sea, changing ocean currents so that warmer water is pushed northward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These El Ni\u00f1o and La Ni\u00f1a events are natural patterns that have been going on for millions of years<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has a page on the issue<\/a> which factually reports El Ni\u00f1o and La Ni\u00f1a ocean patterns are entirely natural. The U.N. reports humans have no impact on them, stating:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is El Ni\u00f1o caused by climate change?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

No. El Ni\u00f1o events are not caused by climate change \u2013 they are a natural reoccurring phenomenon that have been occurring for thousands of years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can we prevent El Ni\u00f1o and La Ni\u00f1a from occurring?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

No, El Ni\u00f1o and La Ni\u00f1a are naturally occurring climate patterns and humans have no direct ability to influence their onset, intensity or duration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crab population crashes have happened before, well before climate change became a\u00a0cause du jour<\/em>\u00a0in the media. Note this\u00a0graphic from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration<\/a>\u00a0showing Bering Sea crab populations back to 1980 (Figure 2, below).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Figure 2: Biomass of eastern. Bering Sea crab. From the NOAA\/NMFS\u00a0SAFE report.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the data in Figure 2, in 1985, the Bering Sea crab population crashed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What happened then? The 1984\u20131985 La Ni\u00f1a event<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The evidence clearly demonstrates that the current large crash of the Bering Sea crab population is due to combination of overfishing and the largest La Ni\u00f1a event in a decade. One doesn\u2019t have to be a scientist to understand this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sadly, journalists like Hirji and Earl, and corporate media outlets like\u00a0Bloomberg<\/em>\u00a0and the\u00a0Anchorage Daily News,<\/em>\u00a0would rather promote climate change scare stories than the truth about the causes of the snow crab decline. Climate change isn\u2019t to blame and trying to prevent future such population declines by fighting climate change won\u2019t help crab populations, but it will waste scarce resources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anthony Watts<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anthony Watts is a senior fellow for environment and climate at The Heartland Institute. Watts has been in the weather business both in front of, and behind the camera as an on-air television meteorologist since 1978, and currently does daily radio forecasts. He has created weather graphics presentation systems for television, specialized weather instrumentation, as well as co-authored peer-reviewed papers on climate issues. He operates the most viewed website in the world on climate, the award-winning website wattsupwiththat.com.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The post\u00a0Population Crash Cancels Alaska Snow Crab Season \u2013 Media Falsely Blames Climate Change<\/a>\u00a0appeared first on\u00a0ClimateRealism<\/a>.<\/mark><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

via ClimateRealism<\/mark><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

October 18, 2022, By Anthony Watts<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Population Crash Cancels Alaska Snow Crab Season \u2013 Media Falsely Blames Climate Change – ClimateRealism<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The evidence clearly demonstrates that the current large crash of the Bering Sea crab population is due to combination of overfishing and the largest La Ni\u00f1a event in a decade. One doesn\u2019t have to be a scientist to understand this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":224636,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-224634","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","9":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/image-923.png?fit=989%2C686&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-Wr8","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":340696,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=340696","url_meta":{"origin":224634,"position":0},"title":"The Snow Crab Collapse: A Tale of Unproven Assumptions and Overlooked Explanations","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"26\/08\/2024","format":false,"excerpt":"The sudden decline in the snow crab population in the Bering Sea has triggered considerable concern among scientists, fisheries, and environmentalists alike. 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