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NSF-GLOBEC
Pan-regional Synthesis: |
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PIs:
E. Di Lorenzo, J. C. Furtado, A. Bracco, J.
Keister, P.T. Strub, A. Thomas, P.J.S. Franks
NOAA Co-PIs:
S. Bograd, W. Peterson, R. Mendelssohn, F. Schwing
Japanese Collaborators:
S. Chiba, Y. Sasai, H. Sasaki, M. Nonaka, B. Taguchi, A. Ishida
South American Collaborators:
O. Pizarro, R. Escribano, J. Rutllant, V. Montecino
Canadian Collaborators:
D. Mackas, M. Foreman, A. Pena, W. Crawford
Project Goal
- [ POBE-Project-Summary.pdf ]
Using US and international observational datasets combined with physical and biological
models, this project investigates the mechanisms of climate-related
variability in three Pacific boundary ecosystems: Gulf of Alaska
(GOA) and California Current System (CCS) referred to as the Northeast
Pacific (NEP), the Humboldt or Peru-Chile
Current System (PCCS), and the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension (KOE) region.

Research Activites
- [ POBE-Hypothesis-Research-Tasks.pdf ]
(1) Assess to what extent, and by what mechanisms, large-scale climate
modes (e.g. PDO, NPGO, ENSO, and potentially others) drove coherent
changes across Pacific boundary ecosystems over the period 1960-2007.
(2) Quantify and explain how changes in regional ocean processes (e.g.
upwelling, transport dynamics, mixing and mesoscale structure) at each
boundary control phytoplankton and zooplankton dynamics. Then, use those
results to test the degree to which changes in each study region reflect
bottom-up control of their respective ecosystems.
(3) Quantify the extent to which changes in the statistics of
shorter-period events (e.g. intraseasonal oscillation, timing of spring
transitions) during different phases of the longer-period climate modes
(e.g. PDO, NPGO and others) determine the climate state of
boundary-current ecosystems.
(4) Explore the range of uncertainties in the response of regional ocean
dynamics and their ecosystems to climate change using forcing scenarios
from selected climate model integrations that are part of the IPCC 2007
report. This last objective begins an assessment of the potential
impacts of climate change on regional ocean ecosystems, a topic poorly
addressed in the latest IPCC report, but the chief instrument for most
fisheries and coastal management.
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This work is sponsored by the
National Science Foundation and
US GLOBEC Program
through the Physical and Biological Oceanography programs