Cod become climate refugees

Research shows that climate change is forcing cod increasingly into northern waters, which could lead to significantly reduced cod populations during the course of the present century. Research by the Alfred Wegener Institute, largely conducted at Nofima’s Centre for Marine Aquaculture near Tromsø, focused on effects of temperature on cod embryos, climate-testing cod larvae and backed by the the EU-funded AquaExcel network. The Centre for Marine Aquaculture has extensive experience of cod breeding, making it an ideal testing ground for this research, which concludes that Northern cod species face spawning habitat losses if global warming exceeds 1.5°C – while if Paris Agreement targets fail to be met, changing are predicted to drive Atlantic cod further north to find suitable spawning conditions with temperatures between 3–7°C. The same is predicted to apply to Arctic cod. Cod embryos are highly sensitive to temperature. Even a slight increase in can result in eggs dying, or in ...