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Key Uncertainties and Modeling Needs for Managing Living Marine Resources in the Future Arctic Ocean

journal contribution
posted on 2025-02-03, 04:16 authored by Julia G Mason, Andrea Bryndum-Buchholz, Juliano Palacios-Abrantes, Renuka Badhe, Isabella Morgante, Daniele Bianchi, Julia BlanchardJulia Blanchard, Jason D Everett, Cheryl S Harrison, Ryan F Heneghan, Camilla Novaglio, Colleen M Petrik
Emerging fishing activity due to melting ice and poleward species distribution shifts in the rapidly-warming Arctic Ocean challenges transboundary management and requires proactive governance. A 2021 moratorium on commercial fishing in the Arctic high seas provides a 16-year runway for improved scientific understanding. Given substantial knowledge gaps, characterizing areas of highest uncertainty is a key first step. Marine ecosystem model ensembles that project future fish distributions could inform management of future Arctic fisheries, but Arctic-specific variation has not yet been examined for global ensembles. We use the Fisheries and Marine Ecosystem Intercomparison Project ensemble driven by two Earth System Models (ESMs) under two Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP1-2.6 and SSP5-8.5) to illustrate the current state of and uncertainty among biomass projections for the Arctic Ocean over the duration of the moratorium. The models generally project biomass increases in more northern Arctic ecosystems and decreases in southern ecosystems, but wide intra-model variation exceeds projection means in most cases. The two ESMs show opposite trends for the main environmental drivers. Therefore, these projections are currently insufficient to inform policy actions. Investment in sustained monitoring and improving modeling capacity, especially for sea ice dynamics, is urgently needed. Concurrently, it will be necessary to develop frameworks for making precautionary decisions under continued uncertainty. We conclude that researchers should be transparent about uncertainty, presenting these model projections not as a source of scientific “answers,” but as bounding for plausible, policy-relevant questions to assess trade-offs and mitigate risks.

History

Sub-type

  • Article

Publication title

EARTHS FUTURE

Volume

12

Issue

8

Article number

ARTN e2023EF004393

Pagination

17

eISSN

2328-4277

ISSN

2328-4277

Department/School

Ecology and Biodiversity

Publisher

AMER GEOPHYSICAL UNION

Publication status

  • Published

UN Sustainable Development Goals

14 Life Below Water, 13 Climate Action