Thin fish, small catches: can Japan’s sushi culture survive climate crisis?

Sushi chefs at Sushi Ginza Onodera, Tokyo. Sea temperature changes will ‘inevitably affect the Japanese diet as some species disappear’, says Shin-ichi Ito, a professor at Tokyo University. Photograph: Behrouz Mehri/AFP/Getty Images

There is little at Shiogama seafood market to suggest that Japanese consumers could one day be deprived of their favourite seafood – from giant crab’s legs simmering in a winter nabe hotpot to spheres of salmon roe resting on a bed of rice wrapped in nori seaweed.

Stalls heave with huge sides of bluefin tuna, expertly transformed into more manageable portions by knife-wielding workers, while early-morning shoppers pause to inspect boxes of squid, flounder and sea pineapples landed only hours earlier.