An Integrated Global-To-Regional Scale Workflow for Simulating Climate Change Impacts on Marine Ecosystems
ABSTRACT
A recent study, led by OP-DCC African Seas Regional Hub steering committee member Dr. Kelly Ortega Cisneros, has established a standardized protocol for detecting past ecosystem changes and assessing climate change impacts on regional marine ecosystems. Conducted within the Fisheries and Marine Ecosystem Model Intercomparison Project (FishMIP) framework, this research developed a workflow that can be adapted across a range of regional marine ecosystem models. The approach enables researchers to create more consistent and comparable projections across diverse ocean regions, addressing the need to better understand how climate change will affect marine ecosystems and fisheries.
MAIN DESCRIPTION:
[Respond to the essential questions: what, where, who, why, how, and when, condensed into two informative paragraphs. This summary should provide a concise overview of the subject by describing key elements and highlighting its purpose and outcomes.]
This study, conducted through an international collaboration of 30 research institutions participating in the Fisheries and Marine Ecosystem Model Intercomparison Project (FishMIP), establishes a standardized protocol and workflow enabling regional marine ecosystem modelers to consistently include climate and fishing data into their simulations. To support implementation of the protocol, the FishMIP regional modeling team developed several tools, including the FishMIP Regional Climate Forcing Data Explorer Shiny app, which allows researchers to access, visualize, and process climate and fishing data for 40 marine ecosystem models worldwide.
The team applied this workflow to three case studies participating in the FishMIP project: the Baltic Sea, Hawai'i-based longline fisheries, and the southern Benguela ecosystem, demonstrating its flexibility and applicability across various model types and regions. Importantly, this workflow can be adapted to any region requiring projections of fisheries and ecosystems under climate change using marine ecosystem models. By supporting the development of more consistent and comparable projections across regional marine ecosystems, this workflow facilitates the creation of regional model ensembles while enhancing future research on marine ecosystem modeling and applications.
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Article link: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2024EF004826
PARTNERS:
Basin-scale Events to Coastal Impacts (BECI), North Pacific Marine Science Organization (PICES), Canada
Centre for Marine Socioecology, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia
CSIRO Environment, Australia
Dalhousie University, Canada
Ecopath International Research Association (EII), Spain
Griffith University, Australia
Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania, Australia
Institute of Marine Research, Norway
Institute of Marine Sciences (ICM-CSIC), Spain
Long Live The Kings, USA
Louisiana State University, USA
MARBEC, University of Montpellier, France
Memorial University, St. John’s, NL, Canada
National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, New Zealand
NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Center, USA
NOAA Fisheries Office of Science and Technology, USA
Northwest Fisheries Science Center, USA
Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), USA
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany
Puget Sound Institute, University of Washington, USA
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden
Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, Switzerland
Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Switzerland
The Australian Centre for Excellence in Antarctic Science, University of Tasmania, Australia
Universitat de Barcelona, Spain
University of Alaska Fairbanks, USA
University of California Santa Cruz, USA
University of Cape Town, South Africa
University of Washington, USA
Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
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