Project purpose
Friday, 18 February 2011 11:35

The purpose of the project is to provide advice to SPC members on the likely changes in tuna stocks that will occur as a result of climate change during the 21st century, by building on and extending the model development and applications already undertaken.

The project is structured in two phases.

Phase 1 would complete the preliminary evaluation of the climate change effects on the four main tuna species of importance in the SPC region, i.e. skipjack, bigeye, yellowfin and albacore tuna, under the IPCC A2 scenario. It would also conduct simulations under the IPCC B1 (reduced emissions) scenario for comparative purposes. This is currently being funded by the Australian Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, and should be completed in the second half of 2011.

Phase 2 would undertake a more comprehensive suite of analyses of the four species to characterize the uncertainty in the predictions in relation to alternative population dynamics model structures, parameter uncertainty and plausible climate change scenarios. This would be a major research effort involving considerable computer and human resources. SPC is actively seeking funding support for this phase of the project.

 

Figure 1. Estimated/predicted distributions of bigeye and skipjack tuna adult biomass at 50-year intervals, 1950-2099. Predictions beyond 2000 are based on the A2 IPCC scenario for the 21st Century (i.e. atmospheric CO2 concentration reaching 850 ppm in the year 2100).

 
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