Abrupt Changes in the Timing and Magnitude of the North Atlantic Bloom
Over the 21st Century
Abstract
The North Atlantic subpolar gyre is a key region for the North Atlantic
phytoplankton bloom (NAB), the foundation of the regional foodweb. The
NAB is dependent on nutrients seasonally introduced into the surface
ocean by deep winter convection. Under climate change, this pattern is
threatened by increasing water column stratification, and the NAB may
“collapse” as a result, representing a potential “tipping point” in
the Earth system. We investigate change in winter mixing and the impacts
on the SPG and the broader northern North Atlantic using 1. a spread of
future projections from a low-resolution Earth system model (UKESM) and
2. a single, high-warming projection of a high-resolution ocean-only
configuration of the same model (NEMO-MEDUSA). For both models we find
significant declines in the strength of the NAB during the 21st century.
In UKESM, this occurred across all projections, but with low
spatiotemporal coherence. In NEMO-MEDUSA, changes in upper mixed layer
depth, surface nutrients and chlorophyll concentrations were noticeably
abrupt and more highly spatiotemporally-correlated. We also find a large
(>30 day) phenological shift in the peak of the bloom
aligned with the timing of this change, which may affect foodweb
dynamics. Overall, defining “collapse” as a halving of surface
chlorophyll, we find that the NAB collapses by the end of the century
regardless of future projection. However, the timing, abruptness and
coherence of this collapse differs in high and low resolution models,
suggesting the need for higher resolution for prediction of abrupt and
irreversible changes, especially those involving ecosystem dynamics.