Maine's fishing ports are doing well for now, but climate change is destabilizing the Gulf of Maine, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's latest "State of the Ecosystem" report for New England waters. Federal scientists presented the report to the New England Fishery Management Council in April, and published it online last week. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Associated Press.

They found that some Maine fishing ports are growing busier, likely driven by the high price of lobster. Stonington, Harpswell and Friendship all see more activity now than they did roughly 20 years ago.

And 2025, like 2024, offered slightly cooler water temperatures after more than a decade of rapid and record-breaking warming in the Gulf of Maine. But the scientists predict that temperatures will warm again this fall, and will continue to rise long-term as the burning of fossil fuels releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

To weather these ongoing changes, fishermen and their communities need to diversify their businesses, experts say.

"Things don't look particularly stable either in terms of the fishery or the ecosystem," said Joseph Caracappa, a research biologist at NOAA's Northeast Fisheries Science Center who edited the report. "We're seeing big changes that are sweeping across the ecology of the system and fisheries. Even socially, culturally — how communities are structured, where people are fishing, who's actually doing the fishing."

This annual report includes contributions from more than 100 scientists across the Northeast. NOAA has had to make do with fewer resources as the federal government's priorities have changed under the second Trump administration, but otherwise the report has been prepared and published as usual, Caracappa said. And in fact, this latest report debuted a new section dedicated to forecasting ocean conditions in the year ahead.

That could help the report's intended audience of fisheries managers navigate an uncertain future, said Michelle Bachman, a senior fishery analyst at the New England Fishery Management Council, which gives federal officials recommended management plans for fisheries in the region's federal waters.

Bachman said that when she began working at the council in 2008, she and her colleagues did not talk about climate change. That's now changed, in part thanks to these reports from NOAA, which have been published annually for about 10 years.

"Everything is changing, and in ways that we don't totally understand," she said. "And we need to be ready to respond to a dynamic system, as opposed to acting like we're managing something that's static."

That volatility is apparent in the ocean temperatures off of Maine's coast.

Around 2012, the region suffered a major marine heatwave. In 2015, researchers published a now-famous study showing that the Gulf of Maine was warming faster than 99 percent of the ocean.

But since about 2021, those temperatures have cooled down somewhat. The Gulf of Maine is still warmer than it was historically, but compared to the most recent very warm years, now is "kind of a nice reprieve" for marine species that prefer cooler water, Bachman said.

Scientists attribute these temperature swings in large part to the competing influences of the warm Gulf Stream ocean current coming from the south and the Labrador Current coming from the north. Over the past two years, the Gulf Stream has had less of an influence on New England waters, but it appears to be coming back, according to the State of the Ecosystem report.

Temperature changes are scrambling where different species live. Warming temperatures have contributed to the decline of cod in this region. The 2012 marine heatwave led to the collapse of the Northern shrimp fishery. Southern New England has largely lost its lobsters, while Maine gained more until very recently.

Across New England as a whole, commercial fisheries have consolidated mostly into lobster and scallop.

"Both have high climate vulnerability risks," said Caracappa. "You're really at the whim of the environment on whether or not."

This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Associated Press.