For a long time, I was almost excited at the prospect of a warming climate in the Gulf of Maine, where I grew up and live today. The gulf is warming faster than 99 percent of the global ocean: More of the warmer water contained in the Gulf Stream is depositing into the Gulf of Maine as the stream shifts northward, and less of the colder water from the Arctic and Labrador streams.
“Over the last 30 years we have warmed at four times the global average rate,” Andrew Pershing, executive director at the non-profit Gulf of Maine Research Institute, told me.
In the Gulf of Maine, as elsewhere in the world, many species are feeling the pressure brought on by climate change. A changing environment makes them more susceptible to one existential threat: invasive species. This, in turn, is having a huge impact on the local fishing industry that employs tens of thousands of people in the area, and provides seafood to the local restaurants that Maine is famous for.
