The New Jersey lobster boom has passed.

Tom Fote, legislative chairman for The Jersey Coast Anglers Association, recalls a time in the 1990s when warming waters off the Jersey Shore prompted the tasty crustaceans to reproduce more, attracting more boats to fish for them.

But then the water got too hot. The lobsters stopped reproducing as they had been.

“We were the canaries in the mines," Fote said of anglers in New Jersey.

New Jersey has emerged as a top state in the nation experiencing climate change, according to a new analysis of climate data by The Washington Post.

New Jersey heated by nearly 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, since about the turn of the last century, the Post found. That's double the average for the continental United States. Alaska, then Rhode Island crossed the 2-degree mark, the Post reported. New Jersey is close.

Some studies suggest the 2-degree mark is a "point of no return" for the planet, a juncture where policymakers will be unable to avoid the worst ill effects linked to climate change.

David Robinson, the state climatologist, noted that warming has been much more severe in Arctic regions, like Alaska. But he says the data spells trouble.

"Why NJ is one of the larger warmers in the lower 48 is hardly certain," he wrote in an email, "however I believe it may have something to do with its coastal location, and atmospheric interactions with the warming waters off our shores."

Record-setting heat in NJ

New Jerseyans might have noticed the rising temperature, even without the new Post analysis, which looked at federal climate data going back more than 100 years.

All 10 of New Jersey’s warmest years have come after 1990, according to data compiled by Robinson. For instance, 2012 was the hottest year New Jersey has experienced since records started being kept in 1895.

“What we’re seeing lately is unprecedented in the magnitude of the changes and the speed" with which New Jersey has been breaking climate records, Robinson said. “It’s a global issue that has local ramifications, and in New Jersey that’s manifesting itself in rising temperatures and more abundant rainfall.”

Temperature is not the only impact from climate change.

New Jersey was pummeled with more precipitation in 2018 than any other year since records were kept, even though there was no single rainstorm like Hurricane Irene in 2011, the year that previously held the record for precipitation.

Hazardous impacts of climate change have already arrived in New Jersey.

From the boom in stinging clinging jellyfish in Barnegat Bay to the blooms of toxic algae in Mansquan Reservoir, the Garden State is grappling with the ill effects.

And it could get worse. Climate change threatens Barnegat Bay's $4 billion tourism industry and could bring scorching summers to the shore.

Mayors fret about flood insurance

Point Pleasant Beach Mayor Stephen Reid has noticed rougher weather, like the violent band of thunderstorms in July that knocked down a tree limb at his home, smashing his RV.

Reid estimated his town spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to dredge lakes in the area to prevent roadway flooding during downpours. He noted the construction of dunes along the beach to protect against storms like Sandy.

Reid was among a group of mayors who recently met with U.S. Rep. Andy Kim, a Democrat, to urge him to oppose legislation that would allow flood insurance rates to increase.

“All these congressmen and senators down in D.C. need to really wake up and say: you know what, we need to invest in our structures," Reid said.

New Jersey Congressman Frank Pallone, a Democrat, in June introduced legislation that would create a pool of federal money to reinforce shorelines with natural features like dunes, wetlands and oyster reefs.

“Climate change is not some distant, abstract threat – it is here, happening now, and the latest data makes clear New Jerseyans are on the frontlines of this growing crisis," he said in a statement to USA TODAY NETWORK - New Jersey. "We see it in our warming winters, our disappearing shorelines, our increasingly severe storms and ever more frequent power outages."

Toms River Mayor Thomas Kelaher, who has lived in town since 1956, was also at the meeting with Rep. Kim. He said he's noticed a rise in the water level of the bay.

That's meant increased roadway flooding. Tidal flooding is an increasing threat to the Jersey Shore, driving by rising sea levels, as detailed in a Asbury Park Press report in 2015.

The flooding costs towns a lot of money.

Kelaher's staff recently outlined five projects to raise roads susceptible to flooding at a cost of about $4.9 million, of which $1.1 million is coming from state grants.

The government, though, will have to act quickly; damage is already being done.

Climate change is already leaving a mark

Fish leaving – Ocean temperatures along the East Coast rose 3.5 degrees in the last 30 years, according to Malin Pinsky, a marine biologist and associate professor of ecology at Rutgers University. That has prompted fish and shellfish populations to move farther north to cooler waters.

For instance, American shad, centered off Sandy Hook in 1971, have shifted up to Rockport, Massachusetts. The American lobster, centered off Long Branch in 1970, are now centered off Salem, Massachusetts.

More bugs – Warmer temperatures and more rain lead to more mosquitoes and extends their activity earlier in spring and later in autumn. New Jersey saw a record number of West Nile cases in 2018 with 61 cases including three deaths, caused by the mosquito-borne illness.

This year, New Jersey had the earliest reported West Nile case ever when a Hunterdon County man was diagnosed on June 21. Warmer winters allow ticks to survive the season and the ability to transmit diseases in winter when they are usually dormant.

A disease-spreading tick is expanding its reach across New Jersey.

Gross lakes – Climate change has helped propel a record amount of toxic algae blooms in New Jersey’s lakes, state environmental officials say. A combination of short, torrential rainstorms followed by very warm days – July 2019 was one of the warmest and wettest on record – helped sour algae growth in places like Deal and Sunset lakes in Monmouth County and Swartswood Lake and Lake Mohawk in Sussex County.

Although some of the algae has subsided, most of Lake Hopatcong in Morris County has been under a no-swimming advisory for two months while Greenwood Lake has been under an advisory since mid-July.

An algae bloom in Manasquan Reservoir prompted officials to warn against touching the water.

Harsher storms – New Jersey is more susceptible to extreme weather and flooding. The Raritan Basin has seen five of its seven largest floods since 1999. While superstorm Sandy wasn’t propelled by climate change alone, the phenomenon did play a role in its intensity.

“The impacts of Sandy were exacerbated by our rising sea level and by the fact that we’re getting warmer,” said Robinson, the state climatologist. “That warmth also includes sea surface temperatures which help fuel the strength of Sandy further up the East Coast than you would see in late October.”

It can get worse

As New Jersey gets hotter, a major source of drinking water could be threatened.

More than 1 million people in the southern part of their state get their water from an aquifer underneath the Pinelands, a sandy area of pine forest, according to Joel Mott, principal public program specialist for the New Jersey Pinelands Commission.

So a change in any direction would impact a lot of people. Rising sea levels mean undrinkable saltwater could seep in. Drought would keep the aquifer from recharging as quickly as needed. Alternatively, too, much rain could saturate the aquifer and lead to flooding.

“The shifting norms is what catches our attention,” Mott said.

Andrew Ford: @AndrewFordNews; 732-643-4281; aford3@gannettnj.com