Impacts of Climate Change on the Ascension Island Marine Protected Area and Its Ecosystem Services

Abstract

This is the first projection of marine circulation and biogeochemistry for the Ascension Island Marine Protected Area (AIMPA). Marine Protected Areas are a key management tool used to safeguard biodiversity, but their efficacy is increasingly threatened by climate change. To assess an MPA's vulnerability to climate change and predict biological responses, we must first project how the local marine environment will change. We present the projections of an ensemble from the Sixth Coupled Model Intercomparision Project. Relative to the recent past (2000–2010), the multi‐model means of the mid‐century (2040–2050) project that the AIMPA will become warmer (+0.9 to +1.2°C), more saline (+0.01 to +0.10), with a shallower mixed layer depth (−1.3 to −0.8 m), a weaker Atlantic Equatorial Undercurrent (AEU) (−1.5 to −0.4 Sv), more acidic (−0.10 to −0.07), with lower surface nutrient concentrations (−0.023 to −0.0141 mmol N m−3 and −0.013 to −0.009 mmol P m−3), less chlorophyll (−6 to −3 µg m−3) and less primary production (−0.31 to −0.20 mol m−2 yr−1). These changes are often more extreme in the scenarios with higher greenhouse gases emissions and more significant climate change. Using the multi‐model mean for two scenarios in the years 2090–2100, we assessed how five key ecosystem services in both the shallow subtidal and the pelagic zone were likely to be impacted by climate change. Both low and high emission scenarios project significant changes to the AIMPA, and it is likely that the provision of several ecosystem services will be negatively impacted.