Spatiotemporal variability and long-term trends of ocean acidification in the California Current System ...

Due to seasonal upwelling, the upper ocean waters of the California Current System (CCS) have a naturally low pH and aragonite saturation state (Ωarag), making this region particularly prone to the effects of ocean acidification. Here, we use the Regional Oceanic Modeling System (ROMS) to conduct pr...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Hauri, Claudine, Gruber, Nicolas, Vogt, Meike, Doney, Scott C., Feely, Richard A., Lachkar, Zouhair, Leinweber, A., McDonnell, Andrew M.P., Münnich, Matthias, Plattner, Gian-Kasper
Format: Text
Language:English
Published: ETH Zurich 2012
Subjects:
Ocean acidification
Online Access:https://dx.doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000060384
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/60384
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Summary:Due to seasonal upwelling, the upper ocean waters of the California Current System (CCS) have a naturally low pH and aragonite saturation state (Ωarag), 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 (1995–2050) simulations of ocean biogeochemistry in the CCS. The transient simulations were forced with increasing atmospheric pCO2 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 Ωarag (~ 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 Ωarag have already moved outside of their simulated preindustrial variability envelopes (defined by ±1 temporal standard ... : Biogeosciences Discussions, 9 (8) ...

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