BIOTIC AND HUMAN VULNERABILITY TO

PROJECTED CHANGES IN OCEAN

BIOGEOCHEMISTRY OVER THE 21ST CENTURY
CAMILO MORA1*, CHIH-LIN WEI2, AUDREY ROLLO3, TERESA AMARO4, AMY R. BACO5,
DAVID BILLETT6, LAURENT BOPP7, QI CHEN1, MARK COLLIER8, ROBERTO DANOVARO9,
ANDREW J. GOODAY6, BENJAMIN M. GRUPE10, PAUL R. HALLORAN11,12, JEROEN
INGELS13,14, DANIEL O. B. JONES6, LISA A. LEVIN10, HIDEYUKI NAKANO15, KARL
NORLING16, EVA RAMIREZ-LLODRA17, MICHAEL REX18, HENRY A. RUHL6, CRAIG R.
SMITH19, ANDREW K. SWEETMAN20, ANDREW R. THURBER21, JERRY F. TJIPUTRA22, PAOLO
USSEGLIO23,24, LES WATLING23, TONGWEN WU25, MORIAKI YASUHARA26

Presented by Melvin Onyia

OUTLINE
Background
Methods
Results
Future work
Questions

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THE GREEN HOUSE EFFECT

Ocean warming and
other climatic changes
Reduction in O2
concentration
Sea-level rise and
extreme weather
events
Decreased productivity

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SPECIES
Changes in environment can effect species fitness and trigger
additional responses in community composition, functioning,
and overall biodiversity.
Changes in temperature can affect metabolism, reproduction,
and survival.
Primary productivity and sinking organic-carbon flux, and
dissolved oxygen can negatively influence metabolism, body
size, reproduction
pH can influence rates of calcification and several other
physiological processes.

SOCIOECONOMICS
Food
Revenue
Jobs
Tourism
Coastal protection

METHODS
Study was apart of Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 to the
Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change.
31 Earth System Models from 18 centers in nine countries were included.
Over 27,000 years of data from the different models and variables were
processed.
Earth System Models precision and accuracy were tested; accuracy was
defined as the proximity of the model projections to actual data and
precision as the standard deviation among the projections of all models
Representative Concentration Pathways 4.5 (RCP45) and 8.5 (RCP85)
Projected change to 2100 under the RCP45 (blue lines), RCP85 (red lines)

FUTURE PROJECTIONS IN OCEAN

BIOGEOCHEMISTRY

FUTURE PROJECTIONS IN OCEAN

BIOGEOCHEMISTRY
Global averages for the upper layer of the ocean could
experience a temperature increase of 1.2 to 2.6uC
Dissolved oxygen concentration reduction of 0.11 to
0.24 ml l21 (2% to 4% reduction)
pH decline of 0.15 to 0.31
Diminished phytoplankton concentration of 0.001 to
0.003 mg C l21 (4% to 10% reduction)
The entire ocean surface will be impacted by warming,
acidification, or reductions in oxygen and productivity

CO-OCCURRING OCEAN BIOGEOCHEMICAL

CHANGES TO THE YEAR 2100 UNDER THE RCP85

EXPOSURE OF THE WORLDS OCEANS TO COOCCURRING CHANGES IN OCEAN

BIOGEOCHEMISTRY TO THE YEAR 2100

FUTURE OCEAN
BIOGEOCHEMIS
TRY CHANGE
ON MARINE
HABITATS AND
BIODIVERSITY
HOTSPOTS.

SUMMARY
The constant use of fossil fuels in our everyday lives from production of
energy to transportation has led to an increase in greenhouse gas
emission.
These emissions have been shown to drastically effect the global ocean
biogeochemistry. The shift in ocean temperature, pH, and O 2 concentration
leading to the change in species environmental conditions.
These changes can have negative effect on species that live in these
environments and also on the socioeconomic conditions of the
communities that rely on the ocean.
From a socioeconomically perspective approximately 470 480 million
people rely on ocean biogeochemistry and will be adversely effected by
theses changes in the ecosystem.

SHORT COMINGS
Theoretical understanding of the climate system is still
incomplete and many unresolved differences exist among
models.
There was low predictability from the limited availability of
actual observations.
Complex deep-water processes were poorly modeled by Earth
System Models.
Data is unavailable for a sufficient number of species to
predict biological responses of an entire ecosystem to the
exposure of biogeochemical change in the ocean.

FUTURE WORK
Continue to track biogeochemistry parameters
Construct a highly sufficient projection model
Collect more data on land and ocean habitats to
strengthen simulation models.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Gruber, N. (2011). Warming up, turning sour, losing breath: Ocean biogeochemistry under global change. Philosophical

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doi:10.1098/rsta.2011.0003
Mora, C., Wei, C., Rollo, A., Amaro, T., Baco, A. R., Billett, D., . . . Yasuhara, M. (2013). Biotic and Human Vulnerability to

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Ramajo, L., Prez-Len, E., Hendriks, I. E., Marb, N., Krause-Jensen, D., Sejr, M. K., . . . Duarte, C. M. (2016). Food

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