Persistent Uncertainties in Ocean Net Primary Production Climate Change Projections at Regional Scales Raise Challenges for Assessing Impacts on Ecosystem Services

• Published in: Frontiers in Climate
• Main Authors: Alessandro Tagliabue, Lester Kwiatkowski, Laurent Bopp, Momme Butenschön, William Cheung, Matthieu Lengaigne, Jerome Vialard
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
• Subjects: climate change; ocean net primary production; earth system model (ESM); climate projections; ocean modeling; oceanography; Environmental sciences; GE1-350; Pacific; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.3389/fclim.2021.738224; https://doaj.org/article/410a37ef32b141409f82353c559be4cc

Ocean net primary production (NPP) results from CO2 fixation by marine phytoplankton, catalysing the transfer of organic matter and energy to marine ecosystems, supporting most marine food webs, and fisheries production as well as stimulating ocean carbon sequestration. Thus, alterations to ocean NPP in response to climate change, as quantified by Earth system model experiments conducted as part of the 5th and 6th Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5 and CMIP6) efforts, are expected to alter key ecosystem services. Despite reductions in inter-model variability since CMIP5, the ocean components of CMIP6 models disagree roughly 2-fold in the magnitude and spatial distribution of NPP in the contemporary era, due to incomplete understanding and insufficient observational constraints. Projections of NPP change in absolute terms show large uncertainty in CMIP6, most notably in the North Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific regions, with the latter explaining over two-thirds of the total inter-model uncertainty. While the Indo-Pacific has previously been identified as a hotspot for climate impacts on biodiversity and fisheries, the increased inter-model variability of NPP projections further exacerbates the uncertainties of climate risks on ocean-dependent human communities. Drivers of uncertainty in NPP changes at regional scales integrate different physical and biogeochemical factors that require more targeted mechanistic assessment in future studies. Globally, inter-model uncertainty in the projected changes in NPP has increased since CMIP5, which amplifies the challenges associated with the management of associated ecosystem services. Notably, this increased regional uncertainty in the projected NPP change in CMIP6 has occurred despite reduced uncertainty in the regional rates of NPP for historical period. Improved constraints on the magnitude of ocean NPP and the mechanistic drivers of its spatial variability would improve confidence in future changes. It is unlikely that the CMIP6 model ensemble samples the ...