Downscaled projections of Caribbean coral bleaching that can inform conservation planning

Ruben van Hooidonk (1, 2) , Jeffrey Allen Maynard (3, 4, 5) , Liu Yanyun (2, 1) , Lee Sang-Ki (2, 1)

1 AOML - NOAA Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory
2 CIMAS - Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies
3 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
4 CRIOBE - Centre de recherches insulaires et observatoire de l'environnement
5 LabEX CORAIL - Laboratoire d'Excellence CORAIL

Projections of climate change impacts on coral reefs produced at the coarse resolution (~1°) of Global Climate Models (GCMs) have informed debate but have not helped target local management actions. Here, projections of the onset of annual coral bleaching conditions in the Caribbean under Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5 are produced using an ensemble of 33 Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase-5 models and via dynamical and statistical downscaling. A high-resolution (~11 km) regional ocean model (MOM4.1) is used for the dynamical downscaling. For statistical downscaling, sea surface temperature (SST) means and annual cycles in all the GCMs are replaced with observed data from the ~4-km NOAA Pathfinder SST dataset. Spatial patterns in all three projections are broadly similar ; the average year for the onset of annual severe bleaching is 2040–2043 for all projections. However, downscaled projections show many locations where the onset of annual severe bleaching (ASB) varies 10 or more years within a single GCM grid cell. Managers in locations where this applies (e.g., Florida, Turks and Caicos, Puerto Rico, and the Domini-can Republic, among others) can identify locations that represent relative albeit temporary refugia. Both downscaled projections are different for the Bahamas compared to the GCM projections. The dynamically downscaled projections suggest an earlier onset of ASB linked to projected changes in regional currents, a feature not resolved in GCMs. This result demonstrates the value of dynamical downscaling for this application and means statistically downscaled projections have to be interpreted with caution. However, aside from west of Andros Island, the projections for the two types of downscaling are mostly aligned; projected onset of ASB is within AE10 years for 72% of the reef locations.

Mots clés: climate change; climate model; coral reefs; dynamical downscaling; refugia; statistical downscaling

Domaines: Milieux et Changements globaux

Ruben van Hooidonk, Jeffrey Allen Maynard, Liu Yanyun, Lee Sang-Ki. Downscaled projections of Caribbean coral bleaching that can inform conservation planning. Global Change Biology, 2015, 21 (9), p. 3389-3401. ⟨10.1111/gcb.12901⟩. ⟨hal-01223492⟩