Session description
Coastal systems provide a range of goods and services that are under threat from anthropogenic stressors such as ocean acidification, deoxygenation, and eutrophication. Accurately projecting future chemical conditions in these socioeconomically important regions remains difficult due to the natural spatiotemporal variability in seawater chemistry. In coastal regions, complex processes including terrestrial-based riverine and groundwater inputs, intense benthic and pelagic metabolism, and air-sea gas exchange act in combination with physical processes affecting mixing, water column depth, and local residence times. These biogeochemical and physical processes interact over timescales of minutes to years and on spatial scales from millimetres to kilometers to drive variability in seawater chemistry.
The complex, local drivers of seawater chemistry in coastal systems make it increasingly difficult to predict how seawater chemistry will change due to anthropogenic changes on a global scale. Importantly, certain oceanographic areas and ecosystems could act as de-oxygenation and acidification refuges by elevating DO and pH relative to source or surrounding waters. For this session we invite contributions seeking to understand temporal and spatial variability of seawater chemistry in coastal systems in the context of global climate change. We also welcome submissions that highlight the effects of seawater chemistry variability on marine organisms and ecosystems.
Primary Chair: Tyler Cyronak, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, CA, United States
Co-chairs: Iris Eline Hendriks, University of the Balearic Islands, Biology, Palma, Spain; Yui Takeshita and Andrea Fassbender, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, Moss Landing, CA, United States
