Cod Population Could Plummet By 2050, Study Says

New research on how climate change will affect the world's fish populations projects that cod could drop by half in the Atlantic Ocean by the year 2050.

The researchers from Princeton University and the University of British Columbia used computer models to simulate how global warming will affect ocean temperatures and other water conditions. They then looked at how fish will react to those changes.

What they found is that many types of fish on the East Coast will move north, toward Canada. They say the hardest-hit fish population in the Atlantic will be cod. Its numbers could be reduced by fifty percent by the middle of the century.

The researchers say these projections could be used to create new fisheries management and marine conservation policies in the U.S.

The research was presented yesterday in Chicago at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. It will be published this week in the journal Fish and Fisheries.