Nearshore waters of the California Current System (California CS) already have a low carbonate saturation state, making them particularly susceptible to ocean acidification. We used eddy-resolving model simulations to study the potential development of ocean acidification in this system up to the year 2050 under the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios A2 and B1 scenarios. In both scenarios, the saturation state of aragonite Ω(arag) is projected to drop rapidly, with much of the nearshore region developing summer-long undersaturation in the top 60 meters within the next 30 years. By 2050, waters with Ω(arag) above 1.5 will have largely disappeared, and more than half of the waters will be undersaturated year-round. Habitats along the sea floor will become exposed to year-round undersaturation within the next 20 to 30 years. These projected events have potentially major implications for the rich and diverse ecosystem that characterizes the California CS.

Abstract. Due to seasonal upwelling, the upper ocean waters of the California Current System (CCS) have a naturally low pH and aragonite saturation state ( arag ), making this region particularly prone to the effects of ocean acidification. Here, we use the Regional Oceanic Modeling System (ROMS) to conduct preindustrial and transient simulations of ocean biogeochemistry in the CCS. The transient simulations were forced with increasing atmospheric pCO 2 and increasing oceanic dissolved inorganic carbon concentrations at the lateral boundaries, as projected by the NCAR CSM 1.4 model for the IPCC SRES A2 scenario. Our results show a large seasonal variability in pH (range of ∼ 0.14) and arag (∼ 0.2) for the nearshore areas (50 km from shore). This variability is created by the interplay of physical and biogeochemical processes. Despite this large variability, we find that present-day pH and arag have already moved outside of their simulated preindustrial variability envelopes (defined by ±1 temporal standard deviation) due to the rapidly increasing concentrations of atmospheric CO 2 . The nearshore surface pH of the northern and central CCS are simulated to move outside of their present-day variability envelopes by the mid-2040s and late 2030s, respectively. This transition may occur even earlier for nearshore surface arag , which is projected to depart from its present-day variability envelope by the early-to mid-2030s. The aragonite saturation horizon of the central CCS is projected to shoal into the upper 75 m within the next 25 yr, causing near-permanent undersaturation in subsurface waters. Due to the model's overestimation of arag , this transition may occur even earlier than simulated by the model. Overall, our study shows that the CCS joins the Arctic and Southern oceans as one of only a few known ocean regions presently approaching the dual threshold of widespread and near-permanent undersaturation with respect to aragonite and a departure from its variability envelope. In these regions, organisms may be forced to rapidly adjust to conditions that are both inherently chemically challenging and also substantially different from past conditions.

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Ocean acidification will progress in an episodic manner, yet this has rarely been considered. Here, we investigate how the intensity, duration, and severity of episodic low aragonite saturation state events along the California continental shelf have changed since ~1750, and how they might change up to 2050 under the A2 scenario from the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Our model‐based results suggest that between 1750 and 2010, aragonite undersaturation events along the shelf have quadrupled in their number and lengthened in duration, but that even larger changes are bound to occur within the next 20 to 40 years. Undersaturation will become very likely the norm near the seafloor by 2030, and if atmospheric CO2 increases beyond ~500 ppm, this layer will become permanently undersaturated. Combined with a fourfold increase in intensity, the resulting increase in severity of low aragonite saturation state events will substantially affect the viability of calcifying organisms and will alter ecosystem structure.

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Abstract. We present 20 years of seawater inorganic carbon measurements collected along the western shelf and slope of the Antarctic Peninsula. Water column observations from summertime cruises and seasonal surface underway pCO 2 measurements provide unique insights into the spatial, seasonal, and interannual variability in this dynamic system. Discrete measurements from depths > 2000 m align well with World Ocean Circulation Experiment observations across the time series and underline the consistency of the data set. Surface total alkalinity and dissolved inorganic carbon data showed large spatial gradients, with a concomitant wide range of arag (< 1 up to 3.9). This spatial variability was mainly driven by increasing influence of biological productivity towards the southern end of the sampling grid and meltwater input along the coast towards the northern end. Large inorganic carbon drawdown through biological production in summer caused high near-shore arag despite glacial and seaice meltwater input. In support of previous studies, we observed Redfield behavior of regional C / N nutrient utilization, while the C / P (80.5 ± 2.5) and N / P (11.7 ± 0.3) molar ratios were significantly lower than the Redfield elemental stoichiometric values. Seasonal salinity-based predictions of arag suggest that surface waters remained mostly supersaturated with regard to aragonite throughout the study. However, more than 20 % of the predictions for winters and springs between 1999 and 2013 resulted in arag < 1.2. Such low levels of arag may have implications for important organisms such as pteropods. Even though we did not detect any statistically significant long-term trends, the combination of ongoing ocean acidification and freshwater input may soon induce more unfavorable conditions than the ecosystem experiences today.

Understanding the temporal dynamics of present thermal and pH exposure on coral reefs is crucial for elucidating reef response to future global change. Diel ranges in temperature and carbonate chemistry parameters coupled with seasonal changes in the mean conditions define periods during the year when a reef habitat is exposed to anomalous thermal and/or pH exposure. Anomalous conditions are defined as values that exceed an empirically estimated threshold for each variable. We present a 200-day time series from June through December 2010 of carbonate chemistry and environmental parameters measured on the Heron Island reef flat. These data reveal that aragonite saturation state, pH, and pCO2 were primarily modulated by biologically-driven changes in dissolved organic carbon (DIC) and total alkalinity (TA), rather than salinity and temperature. The largest diel temperature ranges occurred in austral spring, in October (1.5 – 6.6°C) and lowest diel ranges (0.9 – 3.2°C) were observed in July, at the peak of winter. We observed large diel total pH variability, with a maximum range of 7.7 – 8.5 total pH units, with minimum diel average pH values occurring during spring and maximum during fall. As with many other reefs, the nighttime pH minima on the reef flat were far lower than pH values predicted for the open ocean by 2100. DIC and TA both increased from June (end of Fall) to December (end of Spring). Using this high-resolution dataset, we developed exposure metrics of pH and temperature individually for intensity, duration, and severity of low pH and high temperature events, as well as a combined metric. Periods of anomalous temperature and pH exposure were asynchronous on the Heron Island reef flat, which underlines the importance of understanding the dynamics of co-occurrence of multiple stressors on coastal ecosystems.

Abstract.Using results from four coupled global carbon cycle-climate models combined with in situ observations, we estimate the effects of future global warming and ocean acidification on potential habitats for tropical/subtropical and temperate coral communities in the seas around Japan. The suitability of coral habitats is classified on the basis of the currently observed regional ranges for temperature and saturation states with regard to aragonite ( arag ). We find that, under the "business as usual" SRES A2 scenario, coral habitats are projected to expand northward by several hundred kilometers by the end of this century. At the same time, coral habitats are projected to become sandwiched between regions where the frequency of coral bleaching will increase, and regions where arag will become too low to support sufficiently high calcification rates. As a result, the habitat suitable for tropical/subtropical corals around Japan may be reduced by half by the 2020s to 2030s, and is projected to disappear by the 2030s to 2040s. The habitat suitable for the temperate coral communities is also projected to decrease, although at a less pronounced rate, due to the higher tolerance of temperate corals for low arag . Our study has two important caveats: first, it does not consider the potential adaptation of the coral communities, which would permit them to colonize habitats that are outside their current range. Second, it also does not consider whether or not coral communities can migrate quickly enough to actually occupy newly emerging habitats. As such, our results serve as a baseline for the assessment of the future evolution of coral habitats, but the consideration of important biological and ecological factors and feedbacks will be required to make more accurate projections.