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Abstract Southern Ocean (SO) phytoplankton chlorophyll is highly variable on sub‐seasonal time scales. Although the SO is the windiest ocean basin globally, it is not conclusively understood how storms impact SO phytoplankton dynamics. Much of our existing knowledge stems from satellites, but biases due to data gaps from cloud cover and low solar angles remain unquantified. Here, we use ocean–sea‐ice simulations with the Community Earth System Model to quantify the climatological 1997–2018 imprint of storms on chlorophyll and phytoplankton dynamics in the ice‐free SO. Additionally, by comparing the full‐field model output to synthetic satellite observations, we quantify sampling biases in satellite‐derived estimates. We find that both the sign and the magnitude of the average surface chlorophyll imprint vary substantially across storms but last for at least 4 days after the storm passing. Based on our analysis, more than one third of the storms explain the majority of local non‐seasonal chlorophyll variability, but satellite‐derived storm imprints are often too large in magnitude. On the day of the storm passing, changes in vertical mixing predominantly cause surface chlorophyll anomalies, and reduced light availability due to enhanced cloud cover outweighs the enhanced nutrient availability due to entrainment. Interestingly, storms imprint differently on total net primary production than on surface chlorophyll, demonstrating the difficulty to derive carbon‐cycle impacts from a surface‐chlorophyll assessment. With SO future storm activity projected to increase, complementing satellite observations with other observing technologies, for example, profiling floats, is necessary to better constrain how storms impact biological carbon cycling in the SO.more » « less
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Abstract Phytoplankton in the Arctic Ocean and sub‐Arctic seas support a rich marine food web that sustains Indigenous communities as well as some of the world's largest fisheries. As sea ice retreat leads to further expansion of these fisheries, there is growing need for predictions of phytoplankton net primary production (NPP), which will likely allow better management of food resources in the region. Here, we use perfect model simulations of the Community Earth System Model version 2 (CESM2) to quantify short‐term (month to 2 years) predictability of Arctic Ocean NPP. Our results indicate that NPP is potentially predictable during the most productive summer months for at least 2 years, largely due to the highly predictable Arctic shelves where fisheries in the Arctic are projected to expand. Sea surface temperatures, which are an important limitation on phytoplankton growth and also are predictable for multiple years, are the most important physical driver of this predictability. Finally, we find that the predictability of NPP in the 2030s is enhanced relative to the 2010s, indicating that the utility of these predictions may increase in the near future. This work indicates that operational forecasts using Earth system models may provide moderately skillful predictions of NPP in the Arctic, possibly aiding in the management of Arctic marine resources.more » « less
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Abstract The ocean removes man-made (anthropogenic) carbon from the atmosphere and thereby mitigates climate change. Observations from global hydrographic surveys reveal the spatial and temporal evolution of the ocean inventory of anthropogenic carbon and suggest substantial decadal variability in historical storage rates. Here, we use a 100-member ensemble of an Earth system model to investigate the influence of external forcing and internal climate variability on historical changes in ocean anthropogenic carbon storage over 1994 to 2014. Our findings reveal that the externally forced, decadal changes in storage are largest in the Atlantic (2–4 mmol m−3decade−1) and positive nearly everywhere. Internal climate variability modulates regional ocean anthropogenic carbon storage trends by up to 10 mmol m−3decade−1. The influence of internal climate variability on decadal storage changes is most prominent at depths of ∼300 m and at the edges of the subtropical gyres. Internal variability in anthropogenic carbon in the extratropics has high spectral power on decadal to multi-decadal timescales, indicating that the approximately decadal repetitions of hydrographic surveys may produce storage change estimates that are heavily influenced by internal climate variability.more » « less
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Earth system models suggest that anthropogenic climate change will influence marine phytoplankton over the coming century with light-limited regions becoming more productive and nutrient-limited regions less productive. Anthropogenic climate change can influence not only the mean state but also the internal variability around the mean state, yet little is known about how internal variability in marine phytoplankton will change with time. Here, we quantify the influence of anthropogenic climate change on internal variability in marine phytoplankton biomass from 1920 to 2100 using the Community Earth System Model 1 Large Ensemble (CESM1-LE). We find a significant decrease in the internal variability of global phytoplankton carbon biomass under a high emission (RCP8.5) scenario and heterogeneous regional trends. Decreasing internal variability in biomass is most apparent in the subpolar North Atlantic and North Pacific. In these high-latitude regions, bottom-up controls (e.g., nutrient supply, temperature) influence changes in biomass internal variability. In the biogeochemically critical regions of the Southern Ocean and the equatorial Pacific, bottom-up controls (e.g., light, nutrients) and top-down controls (e.g., grazer biomass) affect changes in phytoplankton carbon internal variability, respectively. Our results suggest that climate mitigation and adaptation efforts that account for marine phytoplankton changes (e.g., fisheries, marine carbon cycling) should also consider changes in phytoplankton internal variability driven by anthropogenic warming, particularly on regional scales.more » « less
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Abstract Population ecology and biogeography applications often necessitate the transfer of models across spatial and/or temporal dimensions to make predictions outside the bounds of the data used for model fitting. However, ecological data are often spatiotemporally unbalanced such that the spatial or the temporal dimension tends to contain more data than the other. This unbalance frequently leads model transfers to become substitutions, which are predictions to a different dimension than the predictive model was built on. Despite the prevalence of substitutions in ecology, studies validating their performance and their underlying assumptions are scarce.Here, we present a case study demonstrating both space‐for‐time and time‐for‐space substitutions (TFSS) using emperor penguins (Aptenodytes forsteri) as the focal species. Using an abundance‐based species distribution model (aSDM) of adult emperor penguins in attendance during spring across 50 colonies, we predict long‐term annual fluctuations in fledgling abundance and breeding success at a single colony, Pointe Géologie. Subsequently, we construct statistical models from time series of extended counts on Pointe Géologie to predict average colony abundance distribution across 50 colonies.Our analysis reveals that the distance to nearest open water (NOW) exhibits the strongest association with both temporal and spatial data. Space‐for‐time substitution performance of the aSDM, as measured by the Pearson correlation coefficient, was 0.63 and 0.56 when predicting breeding success and fledgling abundance time series, respectively. Linear regression of fledgling abundance on NOW yields similar TFSS performance when predicting the abundance distribution of emperor penguin colonies with a correlation coefficient of 0.58.We posit that such space–time equivalence arises because: (1) emperor penguin colonies conform to their existing fundamental niche; (2) there is not yet any environmental novelty when comparing the spatial versus temporal variation of distance to the nearest open water; and (3) models of more specific components of life histories, such as fledgling abundance, rather than total population abundance, are more transferable. Identifying these conditions empirically can enhance the qualitative validation of substitutions in cases where direct validation data are lacking.more » « less
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null (Ed.)Abstract. A new set of stratospheric aerosol geoengineering (SAG) model experiments has been performed with Community Earth System Model version 2 (CESM2) with the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (WACCM6) that are based on the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 6 (CMIP6) overshoot scenario (SSP5-34-OS) as a baseline scenario to limit global warming to 1.5 or 2.0 ∘C above 1850–1900 conditions. The overshoot scenario allows us to applying a peak-shaving scenario that reduces the needed duration and amount of SAG application compared to a high forcing scenario. In addition, a feedback algorithm identifies the needed amount of sulfur dioxide injections in the stratosphere at four pre-defined latitudes, 30∘ N, 15∘ N, 15∘ S, and 30∘ S, to reach three surface temperature targets: global mean temperature, and interhemispheric and pole-to-Equator temperature gradients. These targets further help to reduce side effects, including overcooling in the tropics, warming of high latitudes, and large shifts in precipitation patterns. These experiments are therefore relevant for investigating the impacts on society and ecosystems. Comparisons to SAG simulations based on a high emission pathway baseline scenario (SSP5-85) are also performed to investigate the dependency of impacts using different injection amounts to offset surface warming by SAG. We find that changes from present-day conditions around 2020 in some variables depend strongly on the defined temperature target (1.5 ∘C vs. 2.0 ∘C). These include surface air temperature and related impacts, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, which impacts ocean net primary productivity, and changes in ice sheet surface mass balance, which impacts sea level rise. Others, including global precipitation changes and the recovery of the Antarctic ozone hole, depend strongly on the amount of SAG application. Furthermore, land net primary productivity as well as ocean acidification depend mostly on the global atmospheric CO2 concentration and therefore the baseline scenario. Multi-model comparisons of experiments that include strong mitigation and carbon dioxide removal with some SAG application are proposed to assess the robustness of impacts on societies and ecosystems.more » « less
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