Distinctive stratification regimes and their biochemical implications across Queen Charlotte Sound, a highly-productive shelf sea in the Northeast Pacific
Queen Charlotte Sound (QCS) is a broad shelf region off Canada's west coast that is highly biologically productive and hosts several Marine Protected Areas. However, ecosystems in QCS are becoming increasingly susceptible to climate change stressors such as marine heatwaves, ocean acidification...
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ftgfzpotsdam:oai:gfzpublic.gfz-potsdam.de:item_5020912 2023-07-30T04:06:05+02:00 Distinctive stratification regimes and their biochemical implications across Queen Charlotte Sound, a highly-productive shelf sea in the Northeast Pacific Jhugroo, K. Waterman, S. Jackson, J. Klymak, J. Ross, T. Hannah, C. 2023-07-11 https://gfzpublic.gfz-potsdam.de/pubman/item/item_5020912 eng eng info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.57757/IUGG23-3630 https://gfzpublic.gfz-potsdam.de/pubman/item/item_5020912 XXVIII General Assembly of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG) info:eu-repo/semantics/conferenceObject 2023 ftgfzpotsdam https://doi.org/10.57757/IUGG23-3630 2023-07-09T23:40:17Z Queen Charlotte Sound (QCS) is a broad shelf region off Canada's west coast that is highly biologically productive and hosts several Marine Protected Areas. However, ecosystems in QCS are becoming increasingly susceptible to climate change stressors such as marine heatwaves, ocean acidification, and deoxygenation. In this system, stratification plays an important role in setting the physical and chemical environment, thus impacting how climate change affects the region. Here, one year of near-continuous underwater glider observations are used to investigate how variability in stratification influence the physical and biogeochemical properties in QCS. We document how varying contributions of temperature and salinity to density stratification set up distinct stratification regimes: a salinity-dominated beta regime, a temperature-dominated alpha regime and a transitional regime, whose presence and spatial extent vary seasonally across the shelf. We use this stratification regime characterisation to 1) map where and when these regimes manifest and consider the drivers of variability in regime spatial and temporal extents; 2) quantify the stratification strength as a function of regime; and 3) demonstrate the usefulness of this characterisation to present the differences in biochemical properties and their distribution in the regimes. The relationships between forcing fields (heat fluxes, freshwater inputs, winds, upwelling index) and the active regimes are also investigated to test the sensitivity of each regime to atmospheric and lateral exchange processes. Lastly, we will discuss what these findings inform us about stratification in QCS in the context of climate change with increased riverine inputs, melting glaciers, increased precipitation and warmer waters. Conference Object Ocean acidification GFZpublic (German Research Centre for Geosciences, Helmholtz-Zentrum Potsdam) Pacific Queen Charlotte ENVELOPE(-132.088,-132.088,53.255,53.255) |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
GFZpublic (German Research Centre for Geosciences, Helmholtz-Zentrum Potsdam) |
op_collection_id |
ftgfzpotsdam |
language |
English |
description |
Queen Charlotte Sound (QCS) is a broad shelf region off Canada's west coast that is highly biologically productive and hosts several Marine Protected Areas. However, ecosystems in QCS are becoming increasingly susceptible to climate change stressors such as marine heatwaves, ocean acidification, and deoxygenation. In this system, stratification plays an important role in setting the physical and chemical environment, thus impacting how climate change affects the region. Here, one year of near-continuous underwater glider observations are used to investigate how variability in stratification influence the physical and biogeochemical properties in QCS. We document how varying contributions of temperature and salinity to density stratification set up distinct stratification regimes: a salinity-dominated beta regime, a temperature-dominated alpha regime and a transitional regime, whose presence and spatial extent vary seasonally across the shelf. We use this stratification regime characterisation to 1) map where and when these regimes manifest and consider the drivers of variability in regime spatial and temporal extents; 2) quantify the stratification strength as a function of regime; and 3) demonstrate the usefulness of this characterisation to present the differences in biochemical properties and their distribution in the regimes. The relationships between forcing fields (heat fluxes, freshwater inputs, winds, upwelling index) and the active regimes are also investigated to test the sensitivity of each regime to atmospheric and lateral exchange processes. Lastly, we will discuss what these findings inform us about stratification in QCS in the context of climate change with increased riverine inputs, melting glaciers, increased precipitation and warmer waters. |
format |
Conference Object |
author |
Jhugroo, K. Waterman, S. Jackson, J. Klymak, J. Ross, T. Hannah, C. |
spellingShingle |
Jhugroo, K. Waterman, S. Jackson, J. Klymak, J. Ross, T. Hannah, C. Distinctive stratification regimes and their biochemical implications across Queen Charlotte Sound, a highly-productive shelf sea in the Northeast Pacific |
author_facet |
Jhugroo, K. Waterman, S. Jackson, J. Klymak, J. Ross, T. Hannah, C. |
author_sort |
Jhugroo, K. |
title |
Distinctive stratification regimes and their biochemical implications across Queen Charlotte Sound, a highly-productive shelf sea in the Northeast Pacific |
title_short |
Distinctive stratification regimes and their biochemical implications across Queen Charlotte Sound, a highly-productive shelf sea in the Northeast Pacific |
title_full |
Distinctive stratification regimes and their biochemical implications across Queen Charlotte Sound, a highly-productive shelf sea in the Northeast Pacific |
title_fullStr |
Distinctive stratification regimes and their biochemical implications across Queen Charlotte Sound, a highly-productive shelf sea in the Northeast Pacific |
title_full_unstemmed |
Distinctive stratification regimes and their biochemical implications across Queen Charlotte Sound, a highly-productive shelf sea in the Northeast Pacific |
title_sort |
distinctive stratification regimes and their biochemical implications across queen charlotte sound, a highly-productive shelf sea in the northeast pacific |
publishDate |
2023 |
url |
https://gfzpublic.gfz-potsdam.de/pubman/item/item_5020912 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(-132.088,-132.088,53.255,53.255) |
geographic |
Pacific Queen Charlotte |
geographic_facet |
Pacific Queen Charlotte |
genre |
Ocean acidification |
genre_facet |
Ocean acidification |
op_source |
XXVIII General Assembly of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG) |
op_relation |
info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.57757/IUGG23-3630 https://gfzpublic.gfz-potsdam.de/pubman/item/item_5020912 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.57757/IUGG23-3630 |
_version_ |
1772818485939798016 |