TY  - JOUR
A1  - Koul, Vimal
A1  - Sguotti, Camilla
A1  - Årthun, Marius
A1  - Brune, Sebastian
A1  - Düsterhus, André
A1  - Bogstad, Bjarte
A1  - Ottersen, Geir
A1  - Baehr, Johanna
A1  - Schrum, Corinna
T1  - Skilful prediction of cod stocks in the North and Barents Sea a decade in advance
Y1  - 2021-07-06
VL  - 2
IS  - 1
JF  - Communications Earth & Environment
DO  - 10.1038/s43247-021-00207-6
PB  - Nature Publishing Group UK
N2  - Reliable information about the future state of the ocean and fish stocks is necessary for informed decision-making by fisheries scientists, managers and the industry. However, decadal regional ocean climate and fish stock predictions have until now had low forecast skill. Here, we provide skilful forecasts of the biomass of cod stocks in the North and Barents Seas a decade in advance. We develop a unified dynamical-statistical prediction system wherein statistical models link future stock biomass to dynamical predictions of sea surface temperature, while also considering different fishing mortalities. Our retrospective forecasts provide estimates of past performance of our models and they suggest differences in the source of prediction skill between the two cod stocks. We forecast the continuation of unfavorable oceanic conditions for the North Sea cod in the coming decade, which would inhibit its recovery at present fishing levels, and a decrease in Northeast Arctic cod stock compared to the recent high levels.
N2  - North Sea cod stock may not recover in the decade 2020-2030 while Northeast Arctic cod biomass is also predicted to decline but will be better able to recover, according to an integration of statistical fisheries models and climate predictions
UR  - http://resolver.sub.uni-goettingen.de/purl?gldocs-11858/11383
ER  -