The Climate Change Science Initiative 2008 - 2012

FINAL REPORT

Fisheries and Oceans Canada
Ecosystems and Oceans Science Sector
Oceanography and Climate Science Branch

Table of contents

• Final report of the climat change science initiative (2008-2012)
  • Introduction to the Initiative
  • Purpose
  • Objectives
  • Process
  • Key Achievements (As derived from the Regional Assessment)
  • Results
  • Conclusion
• Annex 1: Climate Change Science Initiative (CCSI) - Regional Assessment
  • Introduction
  • Key Program Notes
  • Key Deliverables Achieved
  • Setbacks and Unachieved Deliverables
  • Collaborations that Leveraged Support and Links to Other Projects
  • Significant Gaps Identified in Scientific Knowledge
  • Outcomes, Impacts and Next Steps
  • Publications, Presentations and Advice

INTRODUCTION TO THE INITIATIVE

The Climate Change Science Initiative, (CCSI), was implemented as a pilot program by Fisheries and Oceans Canada, (DFO), starting in 2008-2009. The program acknowledged the importance of climate model development in predicting climate change’s impacts on Canadian waters (both marine and fresh), as well as the value of models in understanding those impacts at the ecosystem level. It also acknowledged that there are emerging issues related to climate change that have not been adequately researched. This is reflected in the three thematic areas under which projects would be developed:

• climate change predictions and scenarios,
• ecosystem impacts and vulnerabilities, and
• emerging issues - hypoxia and acidification.

PURPOSE

The purpose of the Climate Change Science Initiative was to develop scientific knowledge on climate change from which sound and timely scientific advice could be produced that would enable fisheries managers, and other internal clients of the Department to respond to the impacts of climate variability on marine and fresh water habitats.

OBJECTIVES

The objectives of the program are outlined in the Department’s Five Year Research Plan:

“DFO recognizes climate change will affect many aspects of its Science activities and that understanding and predicting climate change and its impacts is important. Thus, CCSI is designed to focus on national research priorities including improved predictions of climate change in Canadian waters (both marine and fresh); improved understanding of potential impacts on aquatic ecosystems; anticipate emerging issues that have not been adequately researched, and work with other sectors to identify potential socio-economic effects. As a nationally coordinated program, CCSI will complement the regional Ecosystem Research Initiatives and establish linkages with research conducted within Centres of Expertise. The goal of CCSI is to establish a program that will maintain core expertise and allow the development of national and international partnerships. Research aligned with three major themes will ensure CCSI will meet its expectations including: 1) understanding the role of oceans in regional climate, 2) assessing impacts of climate change on ecosystem composition, structure and function, and 3) investigating emerging issues that could impact ecosystem health. Initial prediction and scenario projects for the CCSI will focus on downscaling climate change scenarios for ocean-ice variability in the three basins (Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic) while efforts on emerging issues will focus on hypoxia and ocean acidification.”

PROCESS

The program was managed nationally and delivered regionally. A national theme coordinator led the development and implementation of projects under the thematic areas. Working groups of scientists with relevant expertise were formed for each project, with members from each of the Department’s six operational regions (Pacific, Central and Arctic, Quebec, Gulf, Maritimes, Newfoundland and Labrador).

Proposals were assessed for feasibility, national focus, synergies with the Department’s Centres of Expertise, collaboration potential and their contribution to the objectives of the CCSI. On this basis, funding was allocated to the projects for a period of three years. A summary of the projects follows:

KEY ACHIEVEMENTS (AS DERIVED FROM THE REGIONAL ASSESSMENT FROM ANNEX 1)

The achievements of the Climate Change Science Initiative are considerable in view of its modest funding (2008-09: $395K; 2009-2010: $320K; 2010 – 2011: $320K; and 2011-2012: $305K). Knowledge of climate change impacts throughout Canadian aquatic ecosystems was significantly enhanced through a series of freshwater and regional climate studies; and the successful leveraging of collaboration and expertise both within the Department and in the larger national and international scientific community.
Computer Models - Models were developed for key areas across Canada, including, for British Columbia, projected changes to summer and winter winds off the coast; estimates and projected changes of total freshwater discharge along the B.C. coast; the completion of a B.C. shelf model run for at least one decade; a multi-year run of the Strait of Georgia Regional Ocean Modelling System (including circulation and lower trophic level data); and a model to predict future river discharge from precipitation data.

For the Northwest Atlantic, computer models were advanced appreciably. For the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Scotian Shelf, a 3D biogeochemical model including pH and carbonate system aspects was developed. In addition, the program achieved downscaling simulations for the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Scotian Shelf and Gulf of Maine with freshwater runoff, and finally, biogeochemical (BGCM) coupled models were fine-tuned.

Hypoxia and Ocean Acidification* - Knowledge of hypoxia and ocean acidification was vastly improved and is being applied to other Departmental priorities, including fisheries management (Snow Crab assessments/hypoxia) and policy (Arctic Council ocean acidification assessment).
Progress was made in augmenting our understanding of ocean acidification in impacted regions, including the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the British Columbia coast and the Arctic Ocean. In particular, analyses of pH in the estuary and Gulf of St. Lawrence were achieved, and for B.C., a first estimate of seasonal cycles of pH along the southwest coast of Vancouver Island was undertaken. In addition, a suite of carbon parameter data of the west coast of Canada was collected and in the Arctic, new knowledge of the Arctic Ocean outflow in a state of low calcium carbonate (CaC03) saturation was obtained. (*See definition of ocean acidification here)
The Department’sunderstanding of hypoxia was advanced with the compilation of dissolved oxygen and nutrients data for the entire North Atlantic. (*See definition of hypoxia here)
Additionally, the processes that facilitate acidification and hypoxia in ocean waters are better understood through the efforts of the CCSI by:

• The extensive analysis of ocean variables, including the final relationship to predict carbon parameters from data that have been traditionally collected (e.g. Temperature, Salinity, Oxygen and Nitrates);
• The development of first estimates of seasonal cycles of aragonite saturation and pH both in surface and subsurface waters along the western Canadian coast from available (non-carbon) observations using hindcasting (e.g. models that look backwards in time); and
• An understanding of variability in the timing of seasons as determined from hindcasting -Spring is when juvenile species are most likely to be susceptible to low pH.

Publications – Fundamental knowledge from the CCSI has, or is, being published in 39 scientific journals that serve to extend the knowledge of ocean variability in Canadian waters. There have also been 48 presentations and 18 other scientific communication products resulting from the CCSI.
These include primary publication articles on:

• Annual abundances of zooplankton along the west coast of Vancouver Island with relationship to the annual pH cycles;
• Seasonal pH changes of a coastal and a shelf region for Bedford Basin and Scotian Shelf; Oxygen conditions off the West Coast of Vancouver Island;
• On decadal and inter-decadal variability of water masses in the Labrador Sea, Irminger Sea and Iceland Basin;
• Status of oxygen levels and trends in the NE Pacific, NW Atlantic and Arctic;
• Climate change summary and model comparison reports; and
• Differences between future (2040-2069) and contemporary (1970-1999) ocean currents and water properties along the British Columbia shelf.

Finally, the combined efforts of the expertise applied in the CCSI and by its collaborative community were useful in identifying priorities for future study. And, while the CCSI was focused on the extension of fundamental scientific knowledge, it also played a role in the development of tools that will be necessary for aquatic climate change adaptation. Notably, a new pH sensor (high temporal resolution and real-time data acquisition) for coastal buoys was developed, and is now awaiting deployment.

RESULTS

An evaluation of the initiative revealed that in addition to the use of scientific knowledge by internal client program areas within the Department a number of notable results were achieved. Highlights include:

1. Regional climate models for the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans are beginning to be used to address regional issues.
2. Current knowledge of hypoxia and ocean acidification is vastly improved and is being applied to other departmental priorities like fisheries management (Snow Crab/ hypoxia) and policy (Arctic Council ocean acidification assessment).
3. All projects benefited from significant leveraging from other activities within the Department, with other federal agencies like Environment Canada, and with academia and international partnerships.
4. Project leads identified future research and identified priorities, which would merit further investigation.
5. As of October 2011, there have been over 39 publications, 48 presentations and 18 other communication products as a result of the first phase of the CCSI…others are pending.

In summary, the review indicated that the model of a nationally coordinated, regionally delivered program works effectively to deliver quality science that can be used to support Departmental mandate and policies across the country.

The project reviews were valuable in that they identified gaps in knowledge that require a renewed science effort to address the Department’s vulnerabilities to climate change. In this context, the Ecosystems and Oceans Sciences Sector developed a new science-based program for the Department that would use knowledge generation to facilitate strategies to adapt to the pressures of a changing climate.

The renewal of the Government of Canada’s Clean Air Agenda, predicated on the establishment of the Federal Adaptation Policy Strategy, included an investment of $16.5 million over five years for aquatic climate science at Fisheries and Oceans as announced by the Hon. Peter Kent, Minister of the Environment on November 8, 2011. The investment would fund Fisheries and Oceans’ Aquatic Climate Change Adaptation Services Program (ACCASP).

The foundation of the new ACCASP is risk based; it will define and implement adaptation tools and strategies that address the challenges of the Department and those of the Government of Canada in managing Canada’s aquatic resources. The ACCASP builds on the achievements of the CCSI to pursue a greater understanding of the physical, chemical, and biological processes that drive climate change.

A one-year extension of the piloted CCSI (2011-2012) provided continuity in the Department’s climate science activities, while the future of the Aquatic Climate Change Adaptation Services Program was secured and its activities rolled out.

CONCLUSION:

The Climate Change Science Initiative has succeeded in advancing the Departmental understanding of climate change impacts on Canada's aquatic resources through the provision of relevant and timely science. By focussing on predictions and scenarios and impacts and vulnerabilities, the CCSI program has provided a direct foundation for next steps, the Large Aquatic Basin Risk Assessments being undertaken under the Aquatic Climate Change Adaptation Services Program. The leading edge science conducted on Emerging Issues of hypoxia and acidification has advanced the issue forward so that climate change adaptation tools can begin to be considered. In conclusion, the Department's Climate Change Science Initiative was a program that positioned the Department to be an effective federal contributor to the climate change file.

ANNEX 1
Climate Change Science Initiative (CCSI) Regional Assessment

Introduction

The Fisheries and Oceans Canada Climate Change Science Initiative (CCSI) was a modestly funded science program, created for three fiscal years ending March 2011. To review this 'sunset' initiative, a questionnaire was prepared and distributed among the regional project science leads at the end of calendar year 2010. The following responses have been paraphrased for ease of presentation here. Under each heading are found key responses related to the issues under study, including the development of large scale and regional computer models for the projection of climate change trends and impacts, and the study of related issues, hypoxia and ocean acidification. The document also provides an overview of the collaborations undertaken within the Department, with other departments of the Government of Canada, with colleagues in Canadian academia and the international ocean science community to leverage the investment in the funded science.

Key Program Notes

These notes, derived from the 2010 questionnaire, review the overarching benefits, features and issues related to the Climate Change Science Initiative.
Hypoxia and Acidification: Our knowledge of hypoxia and ocean acidification is vastly improved and is being applied to other Departmental priorities, including fisheries management (Snow Crab assessments/hypoxia) and policy (Arctic Council ocean acidification assessment).

Identification of Future Research Priorities: Project leads identified future research and priorities relating to departmental priorities that they believed merited further investigation.

Regional climate models: We are currently using regional climate CCSI models for the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans to address regional issues.

Significant Leveraging Extended Program Value: All projects benefited from significant leveraging from within the Department (e.g., Centre for Ocean Modeling and Development (COMDA), Atlantic Zone Monitoring Program (AZMP), Ecosystem Research Initiatives (ERI) and International Governance Strategy (IGS)), and from outside the Department including other Government of Canada departments, academia/Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada (NSERC) and international colleagues (e.g., Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR) Working Group 128, North Pacific Marine Science Organizations (PICES) and the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Primary Publications: There have been over 39 publications, 48 presentations and 18 other scientific communication products resulting from the first phase of the CCSI, and others are pending.

Setbacks: There were minor setbacks to the program as a result of aging equipment, delays or inability to acquire computer capacity for model development, human resources and reduced/delayed funding.

Key Deliverables Achieved

COMPUTER CLIMATE MODELS

• Projected changes to summer and winter winds off the British Columbia coast;
• Estimates and projected changes of total freshwater discharge along the British Columbia coast;
• Review of the climate change projections for the Northwest Atlantic; and
• Development of 3D biogeochemical model including pH and carbonate system module for Gulf of St. Lawrence and Scotian Shelf.
• Downscaling simulations for the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Scotian Shelf and Gulf of Maine with freshwater runoff;
• Fine-tuned biogeochemical (BGCM) coupled models;
• Completion of British Columbia shelf model run for at least one decade;
• A multi-year run of the Strait of Georgia Regional Ocean Modelling System (including circulation and lower trophic level data); and
• Prediction of future river discharge from precipitation data.

OCEAN ACIDIFICATION*

• Analyses of pH in the estuary and Gulf of St. Lawrence;
• A first estimate of seasonal cycles of pH along the southwest coast of Vancouver Island;
• Collected suite of carbon parameter data of the west coast of Canada; and
• Arctic outflow in a state of low calcium carbonate (CaC03) saturation.

(See definition of ocean acidification here)

HYPOXIA**

• Compilation of dissolved oxygen and nutrients for the entire North Atlantic.

(*See definition of hypoxia here)

ANALYSIS

• Final relationship to predict carbon parameters from data that have been traditionally collected (e.g. T, S, O2, NO3 -);
• First estimates of seasonal cycles of aragonite saturation and pH both in surface and subsurface waters along the western Canadian coast from available (non-carbon) observations using hindcasting; and
• Variability in the timing of seasons is also being determined from the hindcasting.

MANUSCRIPTS

• Annual abundances of zooplankton along the west coast of Vancouver Island with relationship to the annual pH cycles;
• Seasonal pH changes of a coastal and a shelf region for Bedford Basin and Scotian Shelf;
• Oxygen conditions off the West Coast of Vancouver Island;
• On decadal and inter-decadal variability of water masses in the Labrador Sea, Irminger Sea and Iceland Basin;
• Status of oxygen levels and trends in the NE Pacific, NW Atlantic and Arctic;
• Climate change summary and model comparison reports; and
• Differences between future (2040-2069) and contemporary (1970-1999) ocean currents and water properties along the British Columbia shelf.

OTHER

• A newly developed pH sensor (high temporal resolution and real-time data acquisition) for coastal buoys is waiting deployment.

Setbacks and Non-achieved Deliverables

INFRASTRUCTURE

• Aged instruments caused the backlog of samples awaiting analysis; and
• Inadequate computing capacity (improved in the Spring of 2010).

HUMAN RESOURCES

• Finding staff or students with the right skill sets; and
• The retirement of a scientist has meant a paper on long-term changes in oxygen concentration in waters of the British Columbia continental slope and its impact on groundfish and fisheries submitted for publication may not be finalized.

FUNDING

• A few studies were dropped due to funding reductions in years two and three, and some internal issues regarding receipt of funds caused delayed starts to several projects;
• Regional climate downscaling system for the Northwest Atlantic wasn’t developed; and
• A biogeochemical ocean model (BGCM) for the NW Atlantic was not fully completed; it will be refined in subsequent years and it will be supported by other programs, including DFO A-base.

COMPLEX NATURE OF RESEARCH

• Progress on direct coupling of models with upper trophic models is slow.

Collaborations that Leveraged Support and Links to Other Projects

Regional Climate Model for the B.C. Continental Shelf

• The Strait of Georgia ERI provided some funding to study future changes to BC winds to examine upwelling and downwelling^{Footnote 1} trends over the past fifty years, and to develop a technique for estimating freshwater discharge^{Footnote 2} COMDA provided support to develop the BC shelf circulation model and conduct a hindcast^{Footnote 3} for the period of 1995-2009;
• COMDA provided the high performance computer to run models;
• Collaborations with the Canadian Climate Centre for Modelling and Analysis (CCMA/ Environment Canada) in downscaling^{Footnote 4} results from global and regional climate models, and in analysing trends in winds along the BC coast over the past 50 years; and.
• Collaborations with members of PICES Working Group 20 (Evaluations of Climate Change Projections) in estimating projected changes in the North Pacific were important in learning the state-of-the-art in global and regional model development and applying this knowledge to this project.

DEVELOPMENT OF REGIONAL CLIMATE MODELS AND SCENARIOS FOR THE NORTHWEST ATLANTIC

• The modelling system developed is currently being leveraged to address fisheries and ecosystems issues and a project is underway, looking at future change in the Snow Crab habitat over the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Scotian Shelf (this project being led by the Gulf Region of DFO);
• COMDA computers were used throughout the project;
• Information on climate variability useful to the objectives of this CCSI initiative also support the International Governance Strategy Science program and the Maritimes Ecosystem Research Initiative, resulting in reciprocal leveraging of funds/efforts;
• The project Models and Scenario has benefited from linkages with Environment Canada’s Canadian Centre for Climate Modeling and Analysis and the University of Quebec in Montreal’s Regional Climate Model program, and the Ouranos^{Footnote 5} Regional Climate Model application program; and
• The project supports the NSERC Hypoxia project for the Gulf of St. Lawrence (McGill and the University of Quebec in Rimouski. The biogeochemical model developed within this project will be used for further hypoxia investigation in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

CLIMATE IMPACTS ON ECOSYSTEMS

• Support from the Impacts and Vulnerabilities project enabled the science team to broaden the modelling work developed under the Strait of Georgia Ecosystem Research Initiative/ERI, thus achieving the addition of a dimension for climate impact assessment to the modelling done for the ERI;
• The acquisition of a COMDA high performance computer at the DFO Institute of Ocean Sciences has made possible extensive multi-year simulations which were not feasible before;
• A project is now underway in collaboration with Susan Allen at the University of British Columbia, as a component of the Canadian Healthy Oceans Network, to examine fish larval drift in the Strait of Georgia, using the Strait of Georgia Regional Ocean Modelling System (ROMS); and
• Results from the Strait of Georgia ROMS are being used in a collaborative project with the University of Washington (Pacific Northwest Toxins lead by Barbara Hickey and funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and NOAA).

HYPOXIA

• Decades of data collecting and archiving by several DFO groups and one U.S. agency (NOAA) were leveraged;
• New measurements of oxygen bottom waters by DFO fisheries surveys in BC waters;
• Funding from CCSI to Bill Crawford (chair of the Centre of Expertise in State of the Ocean Reporting) was supplemented from equivalent funding from DFO Ocean Sciences Division, Pacific Region;
• Collaborations with two NSERC-funded strategic projects on hypoxia – Bjorn Sundby of McGill University and Celine Audet of UQARand l’Institut des sciences de la mer de Rimouski (ISMER); and
• A major linkage was established with the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research/SCOR Working Group 128 on “Natural and Human-induced Hypoxia and Consequences for Coastal Areas.

OCEAN ACIDIFICATION

• Linkages with the DFO International Governance Strategy (IGS) program which provided a large, in-kind contribution;
  • Updates to the inorganic carbon lab and the research cruise were funded primarily by IGS at the DFO Institute of Ocean Sciences
  • A new profiling pH sensor and some personnel costs were covered by IGS (Maritimes)
• The Atlantic Zone Monitoring Program and Canada’s Three Oceans Projects (International Polar Year) provided ship time (Maritimes);
• Collaboration with universities: University of Victoria; University of British Columbia; McGill University, Dalhousie University, Oregon State University and University of Washington;
• Collaboration and in-kind contribution from NOAA;
  • A paper was co-authored in 2008 from a joint research cruise along the entire North American coast (funded by NOAA, in which Dr. D. Ianson was a Principal Investigator)
  • A NOAA technician and one research scientist assisted in carbon analysis on the 2010 research cruise

Ancillary outputs of this work include a synthesis paper for the next Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessment/IPCC (Dr. D. Ianson to co-author) and Canadian contribution to an Arctic Ocean acidification assessment for the Arctic Council (Dr. K. Azetsu-Scott).

Significant Gaps Identified in Scientific Knowledge

• Expand modelling to estimate extremes and incorporate carbon data into models;
• Couple circulation model with biological data to estimate ecosystem impacts;
• Improve models to have sufficient spatial resolution to forecast changes and so that the dynamics of all air-sea fluxes are captured more accurately;
• Models to predict the evolution of pH, oxygen, carbonate system and productivity;
• Spatial patterns of oxygen and evolution in a changing climate;
• Assessment of new data from Argo profiling float equipped with oxygen sensors;
• Analyses of fish/invertebrate distributions as a function of oxygen, temperature, salinity and depth;
• Determine the extent to which low O2 in bottom water impacts the distribution of groundfish;
• Physiological studies of tolerance to hypoxia of key species linked to hypoxia maps to manage ground fish species;
• More data needed to be collected, particularly in winter when pH and aragonite saturation states are predicted to be low; and
• Biological impact nees to be assessed through perturbation experiments.

Outcomes, Impacts and Next Steps

BRITISH COLUMBIA CLIMATE MODEL

• The regional climate model developed for the CCSI has 3km resolution and its forecasts have necessary spatial detail that global climate models lack;
• Examine model’s predictions in detail and interpret them for their expected ecosystem impacts or couple the circulation model to a biological model such as the NPZD model (nutrient-phytoplankton-zooplankton-detritus model); and
• The regional climate model should be coupled (closer collaboration with Environment Canada) to a regional atmospheric model (with two-way interactions) so that the dynamics of all air-sea fluxes are captured more accurately.

NORTHWEST ATLANTIC CLIMATE MODEL

• The North West Atlantic model provides a basis for assessment of the impacts of climate change on Departmental regional priorities (Marine Protected Areas, fish habitats, etc.);the analysis on potential shifts in fish species distributions; and information on future ice properties in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

HYPOXIA

• Suspect low O2 in bottom water already determines the distribution of groundfish in summer in much of the continental shelf of British Columbia;
• Present O2 levels, in the bottom waters of the Lower St. Lawrence Estuary are at a critical threshold (2 mg/L) below which substantial changes in ecosystem functioning may be expected; and
• The CCSI-hypoxia maps, linked with physiological studies of tolerance to hypoxia, can be used to help interpret the distribution patterns of groundfish species;

OCEAN ACIDIFICATION

• The research on ocean acidification^{Footnote 6} has:
  • added to the global collective understanding of ocean acidification in coastal/shelf zones and its impact on marine ecosystems;
  • identified the inadequacy of some pH time-series (very limited winter data) to accurately model variability and seasonal timing which is key to assessing risk to marine organisms; and
  • the need for research on the biological response to ocean acidification to provide more robust science advice for ecosystem-based management of fisheries.

Publications, Presentations and Advice