- Experts are studying the impacts of El Niño on Florida
- Warm water in the Gulf of Mexico is impacting fishing
- Warm ocean water can also influence hurricanes
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
Warming oceans may feel nice to swim in, but they can be a big problem for the future of business.
Many people here depend on the water for business.
“You can’t fish in these bays when it’s this hot, because the fish are not there.”
Ronald Crums has lived here his whole life and enjoys fishing off the coast of Panacea.
“It’s hard to get that fish cool enough quick enough so that it don’t spoil,” said Crums.
It’s not just Panacea.
Extra warm water is an issue stretching from the Atlantic to the Gulf to the Pacific right now.
You’ve probably heard of El Niño.
This is a pattern caused when the Pacific Ocean off the coast of South America gets warmer than average.
David Zierden is state climatologist at FSU. He studies that change in temperature.
I asked him what effect it could have on the Wakulla County Coast.
“Rainfall flooding and even severe weather is some of the impacts we can expect from El Niño as we go into the fall and winter” David says.
David says many areas around Florida are experiencing near-record high water temperatures. That could lead to trouble this hurricane season.
“This year there’s conflicting factors the Gulf of Mexico the North Atlantic as a whole is running at record warm temperatures so if hurricanes do develop there’s a chance they could become very strong.” David said.
Water along the northern Gulf is running in the low to mid 80s.
While Crums says the temperatures do impact the fishing, they find ways around it.
“You have to get used to it and you have to cope with it and go fish in a different place” Crums told me.
He says they’ll go to deeper waters where it’s cooler because that’s where the fish are.
“We have to learn to cope with it”
In addition to fish, warming waters around Florida can threaten coral reefs, seagrass and other critical components of the ecosystem.
