It’s Not Just About Sea Surface Temperature: Synthesizing Information to Communicate Climate Change Projections for European Seas

Environmental change in coastal and shelf seas provides a challenge to fisheries and aquaculture worldwide. Coupled physical-biogeochemical models can be used to create projections of environmental conditions under different climate scenarios, but models of this type produce a wealth of information covering multiple environmental variables and a range of timescales. It is challenging to synthesize that information into a form which can be quickly and effectively conveyed to stakeholders. I describe how a range of approaches has been used to analyse projections of environmental conditions in European seas, created using a regional model with a resolution of 0.1 degrees. The projections run from the present-day to 2099 and include temperature, primary production, plankton biomass, pH and nutrient and oxygen concentrations for moderate and high carbon concentration scenarios.

Techniques including time series analysis and self-organizing maps have been used to produce a range of products that convey the scale and extent of projected change in the North East Atlantic, the North Sea and the Mediterranean, aiming for simple, visual communication that goes beyond maps of changing sea surface temperature. Colour-coded tables show at a glance which variables are projected to show significant change at a range of locations. Areas with common environmental characteristics are mapped at different time periods to show the northward shift in conditions. Results from several models for multiple variables are plotted together so the level of agreement can be assessed. In each case the content can be adjusted to fit the interests of different stakeholder groups: examples from fisheries and aquaculture are included here.