The joint ICES/PICES Working Group on Impacts of Warming on Growth Rates and Fisheries Yields (WGGRAFY) brings together worldwide scientific expertise to assess the impact of warming on fish growth, and the implications for fisheries yield, on a global scale.
They develop statistical models to investigate growth patterns in commercial fish populations around the globe experiencing a variety of thermal conditions, ranging from cold upwelling regions (non-warming) to shallow regional seas experiencing strong warming. This comprehensive worldwide analysis will enable them to produce robust predictive models for forecasting the effect of temperature on future growth rates and fisheries yield. They will also assemble a global database of fish length-at-age data accessible the scientific community.
As fish provide 3.2 billion people with almost 20 percent of their average per capita intake of animal protein, it is crucial to understand and predict the implications of future warming for fisheries production.
