Arctic fishes in the Barents Sea 2004-2015: Changes in abundance and distribution

Abstract

The Barents Sea is one of nine shelf ecosystem survey bordering the Arctic Basin. The Arctic region is warming faster than the rest of the world. In the Barents Sea the years since 2000 were the warmest since the onset of regular measurements (1900, Bochkov 1982, ICES 2016) and paleo-records based on foraminifera even suggest that the Atlantic Water flowing into to the Barents Sea area was at its warmest for the last 2000 years (Spielhagen et al. 2011). As a result the extent of Arctic Water with sub-zero temperatures and sea ice is shrinking in the Barents Sea (e.g. ICES 2016). The changes in hydrographic conditions change the conditions for the poorly known Arctic fish fauna in the region. Here we present for the first time results on trends in abundance and distribution of demersal Arctic fishes in the northern Barents Sea.