Projected 21st century shifts in fish growth potential in the California Current Ecosystem

Abstract

We present a modeling framework that quantifies 21st Century climate change impacts on early-marine fish growth potential along the central U.S. west coast using juvenile Chinook salmon as a case-study species. A bioenergetic model responding to future scenarios for krill concentrations and temperatures was used to calculate future growth potential for two ocean entry locations along the U.S. west coast from 2000-2100. Our results indicate that climate change impacts will vary by latitude and entry time, with increased future growth potential in the north regardless of entry time and reduced growth potential in the south for late entry fish. In addition, northern ocean locations will likely experience an increase in anomalously positive growth years over the course of the 21st century. Overall, our scenario reflects a warming ocean that causes spatiotemporal shifts in growth potentialfor juvenile salmon along the U.S. west coast and highlights the benefits of using such modeling frameworks to explore climate change impacts on early growth of marine fishes.

Publication information

Originally published in PLOS Climate on 2025-12-26. Original DOI: 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000788.

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