Changing Ocean, Changing Economics: Impact of Rising Temperatures on the American Lobster Landings and on the US-Canada Lobster Economics in the Emerging Chinese Market

Record high temperatures in 2012 pushed the start date of the Maine lobster fishing season three weeks earlier than normal. High landings during a compressed time period more than doubled the volume experienced in June and July. As supply outpaced demand, an average 40% decrease in ex-vessel price significantly reduced fishermen’s profitability.

This study examined how the timing and location of lobster landings is affected by ocean temperatures, number of trips, distance fished from shore, price, and seasonality. Weekly lobster landings and the number of fishing trips in eastern, central, and western Maine from 2008 to 2014 were combined with NERACOOS buoy temperatures to model the change in productivity. The model shows warming leads to significant increases in landings.

We also used monthly landings, prices, and trade of live and processed lobster between the U.S. and Canada from 1990 to 2014 to specify a system of equations that captures how both markets are integrated and how they respond to changing market conditions. The model shows that an increase in landings in both areas leads to an increase in lobster trade and then to an increase in US imports of frozen lobster meat.

Furthermore, lobster exports to the emerging Chinese market started to expand after 2012 and grew to account for 21% and 11% of the exports value from U.S. and Canada, respectively. From 2010 to 2014, a sub-system model is specified to address how increasing demand in the Chinese market for hard-shell lobster could create incentives to delay production and increase the supply of hard-shell live lobster. The full model was then used to explore ways in which this coastal social-ecological system can adapt to increasing ocean temperature and how the integrated global market might alter the economic implications of the next ocean heatwave.