Enhanced nutrient supply to the California Current Ecosystem with global warming and increased stratification in an earth system model
Open accessAbstract
A leading hypothesis relating productivity with climate variability in the California Current Ecosystem (CCE) describes an alternation between warmer, well‐stratified periods of low productivity and cooler periods of high productivity. This empirical relationship suggests that productivity will decline with global warming. Here, we explore the response of productivity to future climate change in the CCE using an earth system model. This model projects increases in nitrate supply and productivity in the CCE during the 21st century despite increases in stratification and limited change in wind‐driven upwelling. We attribute the increased nitrate supply to enrichment of deep source waters entering the CCE resulting from decreased ventilation of the North Pacific. Decreases in dissolved‐oxygen concentration and increasing acidification accompany projected increases in nitrate. This analysis illustrates that anthropogenic climate change may be unlike past variability; empirical relationships based on historical observations may be inappropriate for projecting ecosystem responses to future climate change.
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Model experiments tracing water mass history in the North Pacific indicate that these waters are subducted from the surface layer well offshore of the EBUS and may remain at depth for decades before being upwelled, accumulating remineralized nutrients and CO2 while oxygen is consumed by respiration.
“Model experiments tracing the history of these waters in the North Pacific indicate that they are subducted from the surface layer at locations well offshore of the EBUS and may remain at depth for decades prior to being upwelled, in the meantime accumulating remineralized nutrients and carbon dioxide while oxygen is being consumed by respiration [51].”
From Anticipated Effects of Climate Change on Coastal Upwelling Ecosystems (2015) · cites this paper as [51]
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- Authors
- Rykaczewski, R. R., & Dunne, J. P.
- Affiliations
- University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (US)
- NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (US)
- Venue
- Geophysical Research Letters
- Publisher
- American Geophysical Union (AGU)
- Published
- 2010-11
- Volume
- 37
- Issue
- 21
- ISSN
- 0094-8276 (ISSN-L)
- 1944-8007
- OpenAlex
- W1806768954
- Cited by
- 206
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 12 · 2025: 12 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 12 · 2022: 13 · 2021: 15 · 2020: 11 · 2019: 15 · 2018: 20 · 2017: 16 · 2016: 6 · 2015: 16 · 2014: 12 · 2013: 16 · 2012: 14
- FWCI
- 8.91
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Geophysical Research Letters (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Oceanography › Marine and coastal ecosystems
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Oceanography › Oceanographic and Atmospheric Processes
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Climate variability and models
- Keywords
- California Current Ecosystem, ocean stratification, global warming, ocean primary productivity, nitrate availability, deep water ventilation, North Pacific, upwelling, ocean acidification, dissolved oxygen, climate change projections, Earth system models
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