Ocean Acidification of the Pacific Northwest Coastal Waters: A Modeling Study

Samantha A Siedlecki, Univ of Washington-JISAO, Seattle, WA, United States, Parker MacCready, University of Washington Seattle Campus, Seattle, WA, United States, Ryan M McCabe, Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean, Seattle, WA, United States, Richard A Feely, NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, Seattle, WA, United States, Simone R Alin, NOAA, Seattle, WA, United States, Jan Newton, Northwest Association of Networked Ocean Observing Systems, Seattle, WA, United States, Jack A Barth, Oregon State University, Marine Studies Initiative, Corvallis, OR, United States and Scott Michael Durski, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, United States
Abstract:
Total inorganic carbon and alkalinity is incorporated into a regional bio-physical model to examine inorganic carbon variability along the Washington and Oregon continental margin. Results are compared to output from an existing oxygen model (Siedlecki et al., 2015) combined with observationally-based empirical relationships between carbon system parameters, oxygen, and temperature (Alin et al., in prep). Model hindcasts for 2007 and 2013 are also validated against local observations of dissolved oxygen, pH, and the saturation state of aragonite. Challenges and benefits of each approach are discussed. The model suggests that the volume of hypoxic and undersaturated water present over the continental shelf increases over the upwelling season, occupying more of the water column later in the upwelling season. This would result in increasingly stressful conditions for biota over most of the water column as the upwelling season progresses. Spatial variability in the volume of undersaturated water in the region will also be discussed.
Back to: Physical and Biogeochemical Processes and the Support of Shelf Sea Primary Productivity and Carbon Cycling II