@article {Scherrer202008256,
	author = {Scherrer, Kim J. N. and Harrison, Cheryl S. and Heneghan, Ryan F. and Galbraith, Eric and Bardeen, Charles G. and Coupe, Joshua and J{\"a}germeyr, Jonas and Lovenduski, Nicole S. and Luna, August and Robock, Alan and Stevens, Jessica and Stevenson, Samantha and Toon, Owen B. and Xia, Lili},
	title = {Marine wild-capture fisheries after nuclear war},
	elocation-id = {202008256},
	year = {2020},
	doi = {10.1073/pnas.2008256117},
	publisher = {National Academy of Sciences},
	abstract = {Nuclear conflict poses the chilling prospect of triggering abrupt global cooling, and consequently, severely reduced crop production. However, the impacts on marine fisheries are unknown. If agricultural yields fall on land, could we turn to the sea instead? Here, we show that agricultural losses could not be offset by the world{\textquoteright}s fisheries, especially given widespread overfishing. Cold temperatures and reduced sunlight would decrease the growth of fish biomass, at worst as much as under unmitigated climate change. Although intensified postwar fishing could yield a small catch increase, dramatic declines would ensue due to overharvesting. However, effective prewar fisheries management would create a substantial buffer of fish in the ocean, greatly increasing the oceans{\textquoteright} potential contribution during a global food emergency.Nuclear war, beyond its devastating direct impacts, is expected to cause global climatic perturbations through injections of soot into the upper atmosphere. Reduced temperature and sunlight could drive unprecedented reductions in agricultural production, endangering global food security. However, the effects of nuclear war on marine wild-capture fisheries, which significantly contribute to the global animal protein and micronutrient supply, remain unexplored. We simulate the climatic effects of six war scenarios on fish biomass and catch globally, using a state-of-the-art Earth system model and global process-based fisheries model. We also simulate how either rapidly increased fish demand (driven by food shortages) or decreased ability to fish (due to infrastructure disruptions), would affect global catches, and test the benefits of strong prewar fisheries management. We find a decade-long negative climatic impact that intensifies with soot emissions, with global biomass and catch falling by up to 18 {\textpm} 3\% and 29 {\textpm} 7\% after a US{\textendash}Russia war under business-as-usual fishing{\textemdash}similar in magnitude to the end-of-century declines under unmitigated global warming. When war occurs in an overfished state, increasing demand increases short-term (1 to 2 y) catch by at most \~{}30\% followed by precipitous declines of up to \~{}70\%, thus offsetting only a minor fraction of agricultural losses. However, effective prewar management that rebuilds fish biomass could ensure a short-term catch buffer large enough to replace \~{}43 {\textpm} 35\% of today{\textquoteright}s global animal protein production. This buffering function in the event of a global food emergency adds to the many previously known economic and ecological benefits of effective and precautionary fisheries management.Model output data and code for the fisheries model have been deposited in Zenodo repositories (http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4110876 and http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4117477).},
	issn = {0027-8424},
	URL = {https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/11/03/2008256117},
	eprint = {https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/11/03/2008256117.full.pdf},
	journal = {Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences}
}