Climate change is impacting California marine ecosystems: rising temperatures, ocean acidification, and deoxygenation. In addition, the impact of episodic marine heat waves, El Niño events, and increasing ocean variability are not uniform across space or time. Climate change refugia are areas characterized by relatively stable climate conditions and therefore have lower environmental stress compared to the surrounding seascape. For species that have limited mobility, regions with lower environmental stress are especially important. Research on climate refugia in terrestrial habitats is rapidly growing. In the oceans comparatively less work has been done to identify climate refugia, especially with respect to their importance for sustaining fisheries. This project will develop methods to calculate environmental stress within the CA Current Ecosystem, with the goal to identify locations of climate change refugia in the future.
Report Information
CCCA5-CNRA-CCRP-P46
Lead Principal Investigator: Mikaela Provost
Lead Organization: The Regents of the University of California, Davis