Downscaling Climate and Ocean Change to Services: Thresholds and Opportunities

In CE2COAST, the project consortium aims for coordinated assemblage and analysis of observational and modelling data to deliver state, trends and variability of pressures on ocean services resulting from ocean and coastal climate and biogeochemical change at the European and global scale. At NORCE, our main task is to deliver new data and analysis on ocean and climate state using Earth system models. To achieve this, we applied a community model assessment tool to quantify biases and limitation in IPCC-class models, particularly their ability in simulating the observed climate and ecosystem drivers in regions of interest for project stakeholders. We perform analysis to determine systematic biases in these models and identify the associated mechanistic drivers. We assess how anthropogenic climate change will manifest in the ocean surface and interior. Lastly, we collaborate with regional modellers in the consortium to deliver improved projections of climate change that are relevant for management, regulatory, industrial and societal organisations. New knowledge on global model biases will be communicated to Earth system modeling community and used for developing optimum strategy for directing future model developments. In 2022, together with our international partners, we have implemented a model evaluation tool that can be tailored to specific regions of interest. This tool efficiently provides a comprehensive assessments of IPCC-class Earth system models across numerous climate variables that includes surface and interior temperature, salinity, ocean productivity, carbon fluxes, oxygen, and ocean pH among others. In addition, we have developed a methodology to investigate the emergence of anthropogenic climate change in the ocean interior. Preliminary results have been published (https://doi.org/10.1029/2021JC017929) and show that changes in the interior ocean is projected to have long-term impact, even after a stringent mitigation measure is considered. Our study highlights the urgency to reduce anthropogenic CO2 emissions to avoid long-lasting and potentially degrading impacts on the interior marine ecosystem.

Global change will have significant impacts at regional and coastal scales on marine systems, dependent socioeconomic systems, ocean services and can strongly interact with regional pressures. CE2COAST delivers transnational added value through strategically combining national expertise across oceanography, marine biogeochemistry and ecology, data and database management, earth system, marine and ecosystem modelling and science policy communication. The primary novelty of will be an observation-driven synthesis of downscaling methodology to provide better process resolution and system representations that are tailored to regional/coastal domains and their associated pressures/services. It will compile and analyze new targeted, fit-for-purpose marine observations datasets from existing and new project observations of ocean climate, biogeochemistry and relevant ecological indicators. We will deliver Earth System Model simulations from the CMIP archive that will be downscaled for hindcasting and projecting physical and biogeochemical fields in the regional and coastal ocean providing past/future states and climate change signals. A capacity to understand and predict these impacts on regional seas and coasts is essential for developing robust strategies for adaptation and mitigation. To inform adaptation policy to ocean and coastal change, we will deliver key new knowledge to end-users through dissemination activities. We will integrate stakeholder clusters in project-long decision making for co-production of relevant science products for specific scientific, management, regulatory, industrial and ocean service applicable assessments to deliver an integrated European evaluation of marine health. It will contribute knowledge crucial to reducing economic, scientific and social disparity across Europe. We will encourage knowledge transfer through common goals with a focus on JPI Climate and Oceans, IPCC, UN SDGs, MSP, CFP, MSFD, WFD and the Arctic Council.

Publications from Cristin

Early detection of anthropogenic climate change signals in the ocean interior

Added value of a regional coupled model: the case study for marine heatwaves in the Caribbean

Riverine impact on future projections of marine primary production and carbon uptake

Contrasting projections of the ENSO-driven CO2 flux variability in the equatorial Pacific under high-warming scenario

Stratification constrains future heat and carbon uptake in the Southern Ocean between 30°S and 55°S

Biogeochemical timescales of climate change onset and recovery in the North Atlantic interior under rapid atmospheric CO2 forcing

Acidification of the Nordic Seas

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Detection timescales of environmental stressors in the interior ocean

Response of the ENSO-driven CO2 flux variability in the equatorial Pacific under high-warming scenario

Constraining ocean carbon sink projections in CMIP6 models

Detection timescale of anthropogenic climate change signals in the global ocean

Earth system model at regional scale

Constraining the large spread in ocean carbon sinks in ESMs

Biogeochemical Timescales of Climate Change in the North Atlantic Interior

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