Abstract
This paper discusses large-scale climate variability for several marine ecosystems and suggests types of ecosystem responses to climate change. Our analysis of observations and model results for the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans concludes that most climate variability is accounted for by the combination of intermittent 1–2 year duration events, e.g. the cumulative effect of monthly weather anomalies or the more organized El Niño/La Niña, plus broad-band “red noise” intrinsic variability operating at decadal and longer timescales. While ocean processes such as heat storage and lags due to ocean circulation provide some multi-year memory to the climate system, basic understanding of the mechanisms resulting in observed large decadal variability is lacking and forces the adoption of a “stochastic or red noise” conceptual model of low frequency variability at the present time. Thus we conclude that decadal events with rapid shifts and major departures from climatic means will occur, but their timing cannot be forecast. The responses to climate by biological systems are diverse in character because intervening processes introduce a variety of amplifications, time lags, feedbacks, and non-linearities. Decadal ecosystem variability can involve a variety of climate to ecosystem transfer functions. These can be expected to convert red noise of the physical system to redder (lower frequency) noise of the biological response, but can also convert climatic red noise to more abrupt and discontinuous biological shifts, transient climatic disturbance to prolonged ecosystem recovery, and perhaps transient disturbance to sustained ecosystem regimes. All of these ecosystem response characteristics are likely to be active for at least some locations and time periods, leading to a mix of slow fluctuations, prolonged trends, and step-like changes in ecosystems and fish populations in response to climate change.
Climate variables such as temperatures and winds can have strong teleconnections (large spatial covariability) within individual ocean basins, but between-basin teleconnections, and potential climate-driven biological synchrony over several decades, are usually much weaker and a highly intermittent function of the conditions prevailing at the time within the adjoining basins. As noted in the recent IPCC 4th Assessment Report, a warming trend of ocean surface layers and loss of regional sea ice is likely before 2030, due to addition of greenhouse gases. Combined with large continuing natural climate variability, this will stress ecosystems in ways that they have not encountered for at least 100s of years.