Ecosystem modeling with NEMURO within the PICES Climate Change and Carrying Capacity program

Abstract

The Climate Change and Carrying Capacity (CCCC) program is the cross-disciplinary, integrative scientific program within the North Pacific Marine Science Organization (PICES). CCCC has provided coordination and facilitation for the first systematic, North Pacific basin-wide characterization of the impacts of large, low-frequency climate signals, regime shifts, and interannual variability, ENSO's, on coastal and oceanic ecosystems. CCCC activities are organized around task teams, one of which, MODEL, is devoted to improving lower trophic level ecosystem models and their coupling with both physical models and with higher trophic levels, especially fish populations. The NEMURO lower trophic level model that resulted from this international collaboration of ecosystem modelers has been used to examine a number of ecosystem responses (spatial patterns, temporal dynamics, and responses to future climate change scenarios). The NEMURO model is being used within CCCC to examine the dynamics of small pelagic fishes like herring, sardine, anchovy, and saury, and to synthesize population responses to basin-scale changes over large regions of the North Pacific.