Skilful prediction of cod stocks in the North and Barents Sea a decade in advance

Reliable information about the future state of the ocean and fish stocks is necessary for informed decision-making by fisheries scientists, managers and the industry. However, decadal regional ocean climate and fish stock predictions have until now had low forecast skill. Here, we provide skilful forecasts of the biomass of cod stocks in the North and Barents Seas a decade in advance. We develop a unified dynamical-statistical prediction system wherein statistical models link future stock biomass to dynamical predictions of sea surface temperature, while also considering different fishing mortalities. Our retrospective forecasts provide estimates of past performance of our models and they suggest differences in the source of prediction skill between the two cod stocks. We forecast the continuation of unfavorable oceanic conditions for the North Sea cod in the coming decade, which would inhibit its recovery at present fishing levels, and a decrease in Northeast Arctic cod stock compared to the recent high levels. North Sea cod stock may not recover in the decade 2020-2030 while Northeast Arctic cod biomass is also predicted to decline but will be better able to recover, according to an integration of statistical fisheries models and climate predictions

Automated summary

In order to provide better decision support, scientists have developed a unified dynamical-statistical prediction system to successfully forecast the biomass of cod stocks in the North and Barents Seas a decade in advance. Retrospective forecasts show differences in the prediction skill of the models, with North Sea cod stock possibly not recovering in the next decade and Northeast Arctic cod stock potentially declining but having a better chance of recovery.