Report of Working Group 20 on Evaluations of Climate Change Projections

Recommendations 2.1 Summary of WG 20 Activities against Each of the Terms of Reference 1. Analyse and evaluate climate change projections for the North Pacific and its marginal seas based onpredictions from the latest global and regional models submitted to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for their 4th Assessment Report.• Using results from the Canadian Earth System Model (Arora et al., 2009; Christian et al., 2010), Christian showed that in the 21st century the North Pacific will experience serious shoaling of the calcite and aragonite saturation horizons, with a variety of poorly understood biological impacts, and that the North Pacific will play a smaller role in the global ocean CO 2 sink than in earlier centuries.See section 3.1 for further details.• Merryfield et al. (2009) evaluated and examined future projections of global climate model (GCM) winds along the British Columbia continental shelf.See section 3.2 for more details.• Hashioka and Yamanaka (2007) and Hashioka et al. (2009) analysed marine ecosystem changes resulting from coupling the Japanese GCM MIROC (version 3.2) to lower and higher trophic level models for the Kuroshio-Oyashio system.See section 3.3 for more details.• Using simulations from GCMs submitted to the IPCC 4th Assessment Report, Jang et al. (2011) analysed and evaluated simulations and projections of the mixed layer depth (MLD) and its impact on primary production and timing of the spring bloom in the North Pacific Ocean.See section 3.4 for further details.• Yeh et al. (2009) examined MLD changes in the equatorial tropical Pacific Ocean and their relation with El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) using the climate change projections from two IPCC GCMs.See section 3.4 for further details.• Curchitser et al. (this report) coupled a 10-km resolution Northeast Pacific Ocean circulation model to the NCAR CCSM GCM and demonstrated both local and global changes resulting from better resolved dynamics in the California Current System.See section 3.7 for more details.• Furtado et al. (2011) examined the major modes of North Pacific and tropical Pacific variability withinGCMs used in the IPCC 4th Assessment Report.See section 3.8 for more details.• Overland and Wang (2007) and Wang et al. (2010) evaluated GCMs for their fidelity in reproducing the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and then used a subset of models for examining future changes in North Pacific sea surface temperature (SST).See section 3.9 for more details.• Wang and Overland (2009) evaluated GCMs for their accuracy in reproducing Arctic sea ice extent.See section 3.9 for more details.• Wang and Overland (this report) illustrated the assessment and culling of GCM projections with an example for SST and sea ice extent in the Bering Sea.See section 3.9 for further details.2. Facilitate analyses of climate effects on marine ecosystems and ecosystem feedbacks to climate by, for example computing an ensemble of the IPCC model projections for the North Pacific and making these projections available to other PICES groups such as CFAME.• WG 20 members collaborated with the PICES Climate Forcing and Marine Ecosystem Task Team (CFAME) by: o Organizing joint workshops at three PICES Annual Meetings (2007)(2008)(2009) and attending the CFAME workshop on "Linking and visualizing climate-forcing mechanisms and marine ecosystem changes: A comparative approach" (April 2008, Honolulu, U.S.A.); o Co-authoring King et al. (2011).Executive Summary and Recommendations Section 2 4 PICES Scientific Report No. 40 • WG 20 members collaborated with PICES/ICES Working Group on Climate Change Impacts on Fish and Shellfish (WGCCIFS) by: o Attending their meetings (Foreman and Yamanaka are WGCCIFS members); o Co-convening the session on "Downscaling variables from global models" at the International Symposium on Climate change effects on fish and fisheries (April 2010, Sendai, Japan); o Co-authoring papers with other members from the PICES community, for example, Ito et al.(2011).• Di Lorenzo et al. (2008) showed strong correlations between the North Pacific Gyre Oscillation (NPGO) and salinity, NO 3 , and Chl-a in the California Current; and salinity and NO 3 along Line-P.• Di Lorenzo et al. (2010) showed that the low-frequency nature of the NPGO decadal climate mode originates from variability associated with the Central tropical Pacific Warming (CPW, a variation of ENSO) so that if projections of increased CPW frequency and magnitude are accurate (e.g., Yeh et al., 2009), then increased NPGO variance and a change in the background state of the North Pacific and its ecosystems can be expected.• Hashioka and Yamanaka (2007) investigated the impacts the MIROC GCM climate projections on marine ecosystems in the Kuroshio-Oyashio system.See section 3.3 for more details.• Navrotsky (this report) discussed both climate interactions on ecosystems, and ecosystem (especially phytoplankton) feedbacks to climate, from a general heat energy perspective.See section 3.5 for more details.• Ustinova and Zuenko (this report) used possible climate projection scenarios to project marine ecosystem changes in the Far-Eastern Marginal Seas.See section 3.6 for more details.3. Facilitate the development of higher-resolution regional ocean and coupled atmosphere-ocean models that are forced by, and take their boundary conditions from, IPCC global or regional models.• North Pacific Regional Climate Models (RCMs) that have been developed, or are under development, by WG 20 members and colleagues are: o the California shelf (Auad et al., 2006); o the British Columbia shelf (Foreman et al.; see section 3.2 in this report); o the Northeast Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea (Curchitser et al.; see section 3.7 in this report).It is important to note that, as this model has two-way coupling to the NCAR GCM, it is the most advanced of all the RCMs; o the Washington-Oregon shelf (Bond, Curchitser, Hermann; under development).4. Facilitate the development of local and regional data sets (e.g., SST, river flow, sea ice cover) by incorporating information from climate model projections as well as observations and historical re-analyses.• Foreman et al. (2011) filled gaps in the last decade of winds measured at weather buoys along the British Columbia continental shelf and performed trend analyses over upwelling and downwelling periods.See section 3.2 for more details.• Morrison et al. (2011) developed a method for estimating total freshwater discharge along the British Columbia coast and used it to reconstruct time series over the last 40 years.See section 3.2 for further details.• Ustinova and Zuenko assembled various data sets (e.g., sea ice extent, SST, air temperature, sea level pressure) associated with Far-Eastern Marginal Seas and performed analyses of low-frequency climate variability.See section 3.6 for more details.• Wang updates and maintains the website http://www.beringclimate.noaa.gov/ in which projections from culled IPCC models are published for the east Bering Sea region. Ensure effective two-way communication with CLIVAR;• CLIVAR representatives gave presentations at several WG 20/POC Annual Meetings; • CLIVAR co-sponsored a workshop on "Exploring the predictability and mechanisms of Pacific low frequency variability beyond inter-annual time scales" at the PICES 2009 Annual Meeting (October, 2009, Jeju, Korea); Section 2 Executive Summary and Recommendations PICES Scientific Report No. 40 5 • Dr. Toshio Suga, member of the CLIVAR Pacific Panel, and a representative of CLIVAR at the PICES 2010 Annual Meeting (October 2010, Portland, U.S.A.), suggested co-sponsoring a topic session at the PICES 2012 Annual Meeting (October 2012, Hiroshima, Japan).He has also invited POC participation in the CLIVAR Pacific Panel meeting in April 2012; • In addition, close relationships were established with the Ecosystem Studies in Sub-Arctic Seas (ESSAS) program.WG 20 members, Wang, Curchitser, and Foreman gave presentations at ESSAS annual meetings, and Christian was a plenary speaker at the ESSAS Open Science Meeting (May 2011, Seattle, U.S.A.).6. Convene workshops/sessions to evaluate and compare results; • WG 20 workshops and business meetings were held at each of the PICES Annual Meetings from 2006 to 2010.Three of these workshops meetings were held jointly with CFAME; • a WG 20 member participated in the CFAME workshop on "Linking and visualizing climate-forcing mechanisms and marine ecosystem changes: a comparative approach" (April 2008, Honolulu, U.S.A.); • a WG 20 member co-convened a session entitled "Climate model projections" at the International Symposium on the Effects of climate change in the world's oceans (May 2008, Gijón, Spain); • a WG 20 member co-convened a session entitled "Anthropogenic perturbations of the carbon cycle and their impacts in the North Pacific" at the PICES 2009 Annual Meeting (October 2009, Jeju, Korea); • a WG 20 member co-convened a session entitled "Downscaling variables from global models" at the International Symposium on Climate change effects on fish and fisheries (April 2010, Sendai, Japan). Publish a final report summarizing results• This is it! Recommendations1.The analysis and evaluation of IPCC global and regional climate model output (TOR #1) needs to be continued.The next IPCC release, Assessment Report 5, is scheduled for 2013, and some associated GCM output is expected by late 2011.James Overland, Muyin Wang, Chan Joo Jang, Sang-Wook Yeh and other PICES members are planning to evaluate these outputs.This activity may not warrant its own new working group but to keep abreast of the results of these analyses, PICES should ensure that it falls under the auspices of the Advisory Panels on Climate, Oceanographic Variability and Ecosystems (COVE) and/or Status, Outlooks, Forecasts, and Engagement (SOFE) of PICES' science program, FUTURE (Forecasting and Understanding Trends, Uncertainty and Responses of the North Pacific Ecosy

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