No abstract

Oxygen (O(2)) is a critical constraint on marine ecosystems. As oceanic O(2) falls to hypoxic concentrations, habitability for aerobic organisms decreases rapidly. We show that the spatial extent of hypoxia is highly sensitive to small changes in the ocean's O(2) content, with maximum responses at suboxic concentrations where anaerobic metabolisms predominate. In model-based reconstructions of historical oxygen changes, the world's largest suboxic zone, in the Pacific Ocean, varies in size by a factor of 2. This is attributable to climate-driven changes in the depth of the tropical and subtropical thermocline that have multiplicative effects on respiration rates in low-O(2) water. The same mechanism yields even larger fluctuations in the rate of nitrogen removal by denitrification, creating a link between decadal climate oscillations and the nutrient limitation of marine photosynthesis.

The coastal upwelling region of the California Current System (CalCS) is a well‐known site of high productivity and lateral export of nutrients and organic matter, yet neither the magnitude nor the governing processes of this offshore transport are well quantified. Here we address this gap using a high‐resolution (5 km) coupled physical‐biogeochemical numerical simulation (ROMS). The results reveal (i) that the offshore transport is a very substantial component of any material budget in this region, (ii) that it reaches more than 800 km into the offshore domain, and (iii) that this transport is largely controlled by mesoscale processes, involving filaments and westward propagating eddies. The process starts in the nearshore areas, where nutrient and organic matter‐rich upwelled waters pushed offshore by Ekman transport are subducted at the sharp lateral density gradients of upwelling fronts and filaments located at ∼25–100 km from the coast. The filaments are very effective in transporting the subducted material further offshore until they form eddies at their tips at about 100–200 km from the shore. The cyclonic eddies tend to trap the cold, nutrient, and organic matter‐rich waters of the filaments, whereas the anticyclones formed nearby encapsulate the low nutrient and low organic matter waters around the filament. After their detachment, both types of eddies propagate further in offshore direction, with a speed similar to that of the first baroclinic mode Rossby waves, providing the key mechanism for long‐range transport of nitrate and organic matter from the coast deep into the offshore environment.

We study the dynamics of the planktonic ecosystem in the coastal upwelling zone within the California Current System using a three-dimensional, eddy-resolving cir-

No abstract

Climate warming is expected to intensify hypoxia in the California Current System (CCS), threatening its diverse and productive marine ecosystem. We analyzed past regional variability and future changes in the Metabolic Index (Φ), a species-specific measure of the environment’s capacity to meet temperature-dependent organismal oxygen demand. Across the traits of diverse animals, Φ exhibits strong seasonal to interdecadal variations throughout the CCS, implying that resident species already experience large fluctuations in available aerobic habitat. For a key CCS species, northern anchovy, the long-term biogeographic distribution and decadal fluctuations in abundance are both highly coherent with aerobic habitat volume. Ocean warming and oxygen loss by 2100 are projected to decrease Φ below critical levels in 30 to 50% of anchovies’ present range, including complete loss of aerobic habitat—and thus likely extirpation—from the southern CCS. Aerobic habitat loss will vary widely across the traits of CCS taxa, disrupting ecological interactions throughout the region.

International audienc

Anthropogenic nutrients have been shown to provide significant sources of nitrogen (N) that have been linked to increased primary production and harmful algal blooms worldwide. There is a general perception that in upwelling regions, the flux of anthropogenic nutrient inputs is small relative to upwelling flux, and therefore anthropogenic inputs have relatively little effect on the productivity of coastal waters. To test the hypothesis that natural sources (e.g., upwelling) greatly exceed anthropogenic nutrient sources to the Southern California Bight (SCB), this study compared the source contributions of N from four major nutrient sources: (1) upwelling, (2) treated wastewater effluent discharged to ocean outfalls, (3) riverine runoff, and (4) atmospheric deposition. This comparison was made using large regional data sets combined with modeling on both regional and local scales. At the regional bight-wide spatial scale, upwelling was the largest source of N by an order of magnitude to effluent and two orders of magnitude to riverine runoff. However, at smaller spatial scales, more relevant to algal bloom development, natural and anthropogenic contributions were equivalent. In particular, wastewater effluent and upwelling contributed the same quantity of N in several subregions of the SCB. These findings contradict the currently held perception that in upwelling-dominated regions anthropogenic nutrient inputs are negligible, and suggest that anthropogenic nutrients, mainly wastewater effluent, can provide a significant source of nitrogen for nearshore productivity in Southern California coastal waters.