Sustained climate warming drives declining marine biological productivity

Moore, J. Keith; Fu, Weiwei; Primeau, François; Britten, Gregory L.; Lindsay, Keith; Long, Matthew C.; Doney, Scott C.; Mahowald, N. M.; Hoffman, Forrest M.; Randerson, James T.

doi:10.1126/science.aao6379

Cited by 320 publications

(353 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…Indeed, longer term projections of changes in ocean ecosystems until 2300 suggest a strong decline in ocean productivity in the Northern Hemisphere and its shift toward the Southern Ocean (Moore et al, 2018; (Figure 3)). In the Arctic, the projected late 21st-century biomass decline under RCP8.5 was concurrent with a projected 20% decline in NPP during that period, likely attributed to enhanced stratification due to changes in water temperature and salinity with melting sea ice and permafrost (Fu et al, 2016).…”

Section: Ensemble Projections In Different Ocean Basinsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Major biological changes in the structure and functioning of marine ecosystems have been associated with changing climates both in the past (e.g., Harnik et al, 2012;Yasuhara & Danovaro, 2016) and in future projections (e.g., Cheung et al, 2009;Pecl et al, 2017;Worm & Lotze, 2016). These include changes in ocean productivity (Boyce, Lewis, & Worm, 2010;Moore et al, 2018) and species distribution and abundance (Cheung et al, 2009;Lefort et al, 2015;Perry, 2005;Pinsky, Worm, Fogarty, Sarmiento, & Levin, 2013) at local to global scales. Over the coming century, these changes will have significant consequences for marine ecosystem structure and functioning as well as for ecosystem goods and services, such as the provisioning of food from fisheries and aquaculture, the production of oxygen, and storage of anthropogenic carbon (Pörtner et al, 2014;Vichi et al, 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Twenty‐first‐century climate change impacts on marine animal biomass and ecosystem structure across ocean basins

Bryndum-Buchholz

Tittensor

Blanchard

et al. 2018

Global Change Biology

163

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Climate change effects on marine ecosystems include impacts on primary production, ocean temperature, species distributions, and abundance at local to global scales. These changes will significantly alter marine ecosystem structure and function with associated socio‐economic impacts on ecosystem services, marine fisheries, and fishery‐dependent societies. Yet how these changes may play out among ocean basins over the 21st century remains unclear, with most projections coming from single ecosystem models that do not adequately capture the range of model uncertainty. We address this by using six marine ecosystem models within the Fisheries and Marine Ecosystem Model Intercomparison Project (Fish‐MIP) to analyze responses of marine animal biomass in all major ocean basins to contrasting climate change scenarios. Under a high emissions scenario (RCP8.5), total marine animal biomass declined by an ensemble mean of 15%–30% (±12%–17%) in the North and South Atlantic and Pacific, and the Indian Ocean by 2100, whereas polar ocean basins experienced a 20%–80% (±35%–200%) increase. Uncertainty and model disagreement were greatest in the Arctic and smallest in the South Pacific Ocean. Projected changes were reduced under a low (RCP2.6) emissions scenario. Under RCP2.6 and RCP8.5, biomass projections were highly correlated with changes in net primary production and negatively correlated with projected sea surface temperature increases across all ocean basins except the polar oceans. Ecosystem structure was projected to shift as animal biomass concentrated in different size‐classes across ocean basins and emissions scenarios. We highlight that climate change mitigation measures could moderate the impacts on marine animal biomass by reducing biomass declines in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Ocean basins. The range of individual model projections emphasizes the importance of using an ensemble approach in assessing uncertainty of future change.

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Section: Ensemble Projections In Different Ocean Basinsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Twenty‐first‐century climate change impacts on marine animal biomass and ecosystem structure across ocean basins

Bryndum-Buchholz

Tittensor

Blanchard

et al. 2018

Global Change Biology

163

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“…Thus, while the available field and laboratory data for the Si:N uptake ratio has too much scatter to single out one of the parameterizations as being the most realistic, and all three Si:P parameterizations allow equally good fits to the current nutrient climatologies, the 30 Si response argues that the EXP1 and Global Biogeochemical Cycles 10.1029/2019GB006460 EXP2 cases are more realistic that the HYPR case. Our results underscore the importance of constraining the iron dependence of the diatom Si:N uptake ratio, and of accurately representing this dependence in ocean biogeochemical models, not only to assess the SALH but also to predict the future response of ocean productivity to changes in iron cycling (e.g., Moore et al, 2018). In future work, we plan to investigate the role of circulation changes (e.g., Crosta et al, 2007) in controlling silicic acid leakage and its Si isotopic signature.…”

Section: 1029/2019gb006460mentioning

confidence: 63%

Diatom Physiology Controls Silicic Acid Leakage in Response to Iron Fertilization

Holzer

Pasquier

DeVries

et al. 2019

Global Biogeochemical Cycles

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We explore how the iron dependence of the Si:P uptake ratio RSi:P of diatoms controls the response of the global silicon cycle and phytoplankton community structure to Southern Ocean iron fertilization. We use a data‐constrained model of the coupled Si‐P‐Fe cycles that features a mechanistic representation of nutrient colimitations for three phytoplankton classes and that is embedded in a data‐assimilated global ocean circulation model. We consider three parameterizations of the iron dependence of RSi:P, all of which are consistent with the available field data and allow equally good fits to the observed nutrient climatology but result in very different responses to iron fertilization: Depending on how sharply RSi:P decreases with increasing iron concentration, iron fertilization can either cause enhanced silicic acid leakage from the Southern Ocean or strengthened Southern Ocean silicon trapping. Enhanced silicic acid leakage occurs if decreases in RSi:P win over increases in diatom growth, while the converse causes strengthened Southern Ocean silicon trapping. Silicic acid leakage drives a floristic shift in favor of diatoms in the subtropical gyres and stimulates increased low‐latitude opal export. The diatom contribution to global phosphorus export increases, but the lower diatom silicon requirement under iron‐replete conditions reduces the global opal export. Regardless of RSi:P parameterization, the global response of the biological phosphorus and silicon pumps is dominated by the Southern Ocean. The Si isotope signature of opal flux becomes systematically lighter with increasing iron‐induced silicic acid leakage, consistent with sediment records from iron‐rich glacial periods.

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“…Regions that are most at risk from combined fishing‐climate change impacts are social‐economically or politically vulnerable to negative impacts on living marine resources. For example, fisheries of the small islands development states in the Caribbean Sea, central, and south Pacific Ocean, as well as countries along the West African coast, which are identified as high risk regions here, are considered to have high vulnerability to climate change impacts because of their high dependence on the oceans for food and livelihood while adaptive capacity to manage such impacts are low (Lam et al., ; Monnereau et al., ). In addition, high sea regions such as the central Atlantic and South Pacific were also identified as having high risk of fishing‐climate change impacts.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Opportunities for climate‐risk reduction through effective fisheries management

Cheung

Jones

Reygondeau

et al. 2018

Global Change Biology

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Risk of impact of marine fishes to fishing and climate change (including ocean acidification) depend on the species' ecological and biological characteristics, as well as their exposure to over-exploitation and climate hazards. These human-induced hazards should be considered concurrently in conservation risk assessment. In this study, we aim to examine the combined contributions of climate change and fishing to the risk of impacts of exploited fishes, and the scope for climate-risk reduction from fisheries management. We combine fuzzy logic expert system with species distribution modeling to assess the extinction risks of climate and fishing impacts of 825 exploited marine fish species across the global ocean. We compare our calculated risk index with extinction risk of marine species assessed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Our results show that 60% (499 species) of the assessed species are projected to experience very high risk from both overfishing and climate change under a "business-as-usual" scenario (RCP 8.5 with current status of fisheries) by 2050. The risk index is significantly and positively related to level of IUCN extinction risk (ordinal logistic regression, p < 0.0001). Furthermore, the regression model predicts species with very high risk index would have at least one in five (>20%) chance of having high extinction risk in the next few decades (equivalent to the IUCN categories of vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered). Areas with more at-risk species to climate change are in tropical and subtropical oceans, while those that are at risk to fishing are distributed more broadly, with higher concentration of at-risk species in North Atlantic and South Pacific Ocean. The number of species with high extinction risk would decrease by 63% under the sustainable fisheries-low emission scenario relative to the "business-as-usual" scenario. This study highlights the substantial opportunities for climate-risk reduction through effective fisheries management.

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Sustained climate warming drives declining marine biological productivity

Cited by 320 publications

References 47 publications

Twenty‐first‐century climate change impacts on marine animal biomass and ecosystem structure across ocean basins

Twenty‐first‐century climate change impacts on marine animal biomass and ecosystem structure across ocean basins

Diatom Physiology Controls Silicic Acid Leakage in Response to Iron Fertilization

Opportunities for climate‐risk reduction through effective fisheries management

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