El Niño: North Effects in the Eastern Subarctic Pacific Ocean ( Washington Sea Grant Program

• Main Authors: Notes 1 W S References, S Wooster, W, Ed ., C M Wooster, J Duarte, N Cebrían, J A Marbá, R C Mcgowan, 2, S R Francis, Hare, Fish, A B Oceanogr, W S Hollowed, J Wooster, R, L Beamish, T, Hayward
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Pacific; Subarctic
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.1055.8139; http://www.sisal.unam.mx/labeco/LAB_ECOLOGIA/Lagunas_Costeras_files/nutrient%20biogeochemistry%20of%20the%20coastal%20zone,%20Jickells,%201998.pdf

in number. If, as we think, the frequency of disturbances may be increasing, then more sophisticated programs are needed to achieve better understanding of how harvested populations or entire ecosystems respond to climate variations. The coastal seas are one of the most valuable and vulnerable of Earth's habitats. Significant inputs of nutrients to the coastal zone arrive via rivers, groundwater, and the atmosphere. Nutrient fluxes through these routes have been increased by human activity. In addition, the N:P:Si ratios of these inputs have been perturbed, and many coastal management practices exacerbate these perturbations. There is evidence of impacts arising from these changes (in phytoplankton numbers and relative species abundance, and deepwater oxygen declines) in areas of restricted water exchange. Elsewhere, the nutrient fluxes through the coastal zone appear to be still dominated by large inputs from the open ocean, and there is little evidence of anthropogenic perturbations. The coastal seas are one of the most important areas of the world oceans from a human perspective. We use these areas for food supplies via fishing, with almost all the world's fish catch coming from coastal waters and adjacent upwellings (1); as a source of nonrenewable (such as hydrocarbons and sand and gravel extraction) and renewable resources; and for power and transportation (2), as well as for waste disposal and for recreation. In a recent attempt to value the world's ecosytems (3), coastal seas were assigned a higher value than the whole terrestrial or open ocean system, despite their much smaller area. Almost all this value is associated with the storage and cycling of the nutrients N and P. The approach and conclusions of this study (3) are open to criticism, because it is not possible to value an