Modeling Carbon Budgets and Acidification in the Mediterranean Sea Ecosystem Under Contemporary and Future Climate

• Published in: Frontiers in Marine Science
• Main Authors: Solidoro, Cosimo, Cossarini, Gianpiero, Lazzari, Paolo, Galli, Giovanni, Bolzon, Giorgio, Somot, Samuel, Salon, Stefano
• Other Authors: Istituto Nazionale di Oceanografia e di Geofisica Sperimentale (OGS), Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics Trieste (ICTP), Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML), Centre national de recherches météorologiques (CNRM), Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées (OMP), Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Université Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier (UT3), Université de Toulouse (UT)-Université de Toulouse (UT)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Météo-France-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Université Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier (UT3), Université de Toulouse (UT)-Université de Toulouse (UT)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National d'Études Spatiales Toulouse (CNES)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Météo-France-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Med-CORDEX
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2022
• Subjects: acidification; carbon cycling; Mediterranean Sea; carbon budgets; model uncertainty; high CO 2 scenario; [SDU.STU.OC]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences/Oceanography; [SDE.MCG]Environmental Sciences/Global Changes; Ocean acidification
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-03932110; https://hal.science/hal-03932110/document; https://hal.science/hal-03932110/file/solidoro_etal_2021_FrontMarScience_FutureScenBiogeoAcidification.pdf; https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2021.781522

International audience We simulate and analyze the effects of a high CO 2 emission scenario on the Mediterranean Sea biogeochemical state at the end of the XXI century, with a focus on carbon cycling, budgets and fluxes, within and between the Mediterranean subbasins, and on ocean acidification. As a result of the overall warming of surface water and exchanges at the boundaries, the model results project an increment in both the plankton primary production and the system total respiration. However, productivity increases less than respiration, so these changes yield to a decreament in the concentrations of total living carbon, chlorophyll, particulate organic carbon and oxygen in the epipelagic layer, and to an increment in the DIC pool all over the basin. In terms of mass budgets, the large increment in the dissolution of atmospheric CO 2 results in an increment of most carbon fluxes, including the horizontal exchanges between eastern and western sub-basins, in a reduction of the organic carbon component, and in an increament of the inorganic one. The eastern sub-basin accumulates more than 85% of the absorbed atmospheric CO 2. A clear ocean acidification signal is observed all over the basin, quantitatively similar to those projected in most oceans, and well detectable also down to the mesopelagic and bathypelagic layers.