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Now available in PDF format: Abstract Book [7.4 Mb] (posted 10 November 2005)

Abstracts for Posters

Coastal (P-CO)

Sub-Theme 3: Reefs & Fisheries

P-CO3.1

Decision Support Tools for Coral Reef Management under Changing Climates

John W. McManus, NCORE/RSMAS/U. Miami, jmcmanus@rsmas.miami.edu

Felimon C. Gayanilo, Jr., NCORE/RSMAS/U. Miami

Amit L. Hazra, NCORE/RSMAS/U. Miami

Marilyn E. Brandt, NCORE/RSMAS/U. Miami,

Alette T. Yñiguez, NCORE/RSMAS/U. Miami,

Wade T. Cooper, NCORE/RSMAS/U. Miami

Johnathan Kool, NCORE/RSMAS/U. Miami

Catherine A. Bliss, NCORE/RSMAS/U. Miami

This presentation will address the incorporation of climate change information into coral reef and related coastal ecosystem management decision support tools. The project, which is being carried out by climate information users from the academic community under funding from EPA's Global Change Research Program, focuses on improving scientific and technological support for coral reef management in the context of climate change. As such, this work supports the U.S. Climate Change Science Program's Goal 4 evaluation of "adaptation options for climate-sensitive ecosystems and resources."

Coral reef ecosystems support hundreds of millions of people and are essential to the economies of many states and nations. A myriad of anthropogenic stressors have resulted in a global decline in coral reef ecological health and integrity, with a consequent loss of essential ecological services. Climate change is expected to have severe consequences for coral reefs, compounding the negative effects of human activities. In addition to direct impacts on coral growth via warming seas and changing seawater chemistry, climate change will impact coral reefs through increasing storm damage, altered current patterns, rising sea-levels, increasing land runoff, and changes in human use patterns. In order to ensure that coral reefs are given the best possible chances to persist in the face of climate change, it is crucial that adverse human impacts be reduced through knowledge-based, participatory resource management. Additionally, spatially-explicit management should be adjusted to enhance resilience to, and recovery from, climate-related stresses and perturbations—as in providing special protection to climate change tolerant species and sources of larvae.

We have developed a decision support tool, Data Navigator South Florida, which provides user-friendly public access to hundreds of spatially-explicit data sets via an advanced, online GIS interface with layer presentation based on decision trees. Climate-related, satellite-based information is automatically updated via third-party websites. Other data entry will be increasingly automated as online climate change simulators, improved ocean observing systems, and real-time hydrodynamic models become operable.

We have also developed a series of simulation models as steps toward incorporating scenario-testing capabilities into the tool. These include agent-based models of coral disease, 3-dimensional seaweed dynamics, coral reef food-webs, ecological resilience, and coupled human-environment interactions. The integrated simulator under development will permit users to input combinations of human and climate change stressors, providing ranges of potential ecological and socioeconomic consequences in spatially explicit form that can be analyzed within the context of extant information in the Data Navigator.

P-CO3.2

Coupling Remote Sensing and In-Situ Data to Derive a Calcification Index for Coral Reef Ecosystems

Dwight K. Gledhill, Coral Reef Watch, NOAA/NESDIS, Silver Spring, MD, dwight.gledhill@noaa.gov

Mounting evidence suggests that as a consequence of rising atmospheric CO₂, profound pH changes in the surface layers of the world's oceans are occurring. A concurrent decrease in the concentration of carbonate ion has resulted in reduced saturation states with respect to the carbonate minerals that serve as substrates to coral reef communities. Such changes in ocean chemistry are expected to become increasingly evident in the coming decades. Experimental observations show a strong correlation between the calcification rate of carbonate secreting organisms and saturation state leading many investigators to conclude that calcification rates could significantly decrease by the middle of the 21st century. Coral reef ecosystems may be subject to enhanced biological and mechanical erosion as a consequence and would be unable to sustain sufficient extension rates to accommodate rising sea level. The mission of NOAA's Coral Reef Watch Program is to utilize remote sensing and in-situ tools for near real-time and long term monitoring, modeling and reporting of physical environmental conditions of coral reef ecosystems; assisting in the management, study and assessment of impacts of environmental change on coral reef ecosystems. Within the purview of this mission, Coral Reef Watch is seeking to monitor the long term response of coral reef ecosystems to changing carbon chemistry by coupling a multitude of advanced tools including remote sensing, ships-of-oportunity and moored stations. The production of CO₂ as a byproduct of calcification results in elevated aqueous CO₂ concentrations relative to surrounding waters. The reef water to offshore difference in sea surface carbon dioxide partial pressure is indicative of the system-level metabolic performance of a coral reef ecosystem. Based on this quantity an index is proposed that will provide a qualitative assessment of the overall calcification performance at a reef system. Algorithms are currently being derived that correlate shipboard measurements of p CO₂ in the Caribbean Sea to collocated satellite products including sea surface
temperature and ocean color. Such algorithms will be used to generate a near real-time regional p CO₂ field to which continuous in-situ near-reef CO₂ measurements can be compared.

[Poster PDF]

P-CO3.3

Climate and Ecosystem Research to Advance Fisheries Management

Kenric E. Osgood, Office of Science and Technology, NOAA Fisheries Service, F/ST7, 1315 East-West Highway, Silver Spring, MD 20910, kenric.osgood@noaa.gov

Alaskan fisheries account for approximately 50% of the U.S. commercial fishery landings with a landed value of approximately $1.5 billion each year. Global climate models predict climate change and variability will be most severe at high latitudes and there are many indications that environmental conditions are already changing in these regions. The need for resource management to account for this forcing mechanism is clear as changes in physical forcing in the region may drastically change the structure and functioning of the marine ecosystem and cause profound geographic shifts in species
distributions.

An ecosystem approach to management requires understanding how climate fluctuations affect the ecosystem. The North Pacific Climate Regimes and Ecosystem Productivity (NPCREP) study is building this understanding for the eastern Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska by investigating the physical and biological controls on the ecosystems and how these are affected by climate variability and change. A combination of retrospective, monitoring, process and modeling studies are advancing the understanding of the impacts of climate on the fisheries in the region. NPCREP is establishing a monitoring network, consisting of satellite observations, moorings, drifters and shipboard surveys, which utilizes existing observations and supplements these with measurements critical to the success of the project. Coupling these observations with information from NPCREP retrospective and process studies generates the necessary foundation for understanding climate-ecosystem relationships. Through the increased understanding being obtained about the impacts of climate variability and change on the fisheries in the eastern Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska, NPCREP is developing indicators of climate impacts on marine ecosystems and models to predict the probable consequences of global climate change on the eastern Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska. These products are delivered to fisheries managers at the North Pacific Fishery Management Council so that climate variability and change can be incorporated into the management decisions affecting the living marine resources in these regions.

[Poster PDF]