Coastal SEES: Coastal fog-mediated interactions between climate change, upwelling, and coast redwood resilience: Projecting vulnerabilities and the human response

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Coastal upwelling in eastern boundary currents drives some of the Earth's most productive and biodiverse marine ecosystems. While the contributions of upwelling to marine ecosystems are well-recognized, critical implications of upwelling for coastal terrestrial ecosystems are not. The main hypothesis of this study is that ocean-atmosphere-land interactions, mediated by coastal fog, cause upwelling to drive one of the Earth's most productive terrestrial ecosystems, coast redwood forests. The study further hypothesizes that learning about climate change impacts to this iconic species can influence perceptions of climate change. The future resilience of coast redwoods is now of critical concern due to the detection of a decline in coastal fog that may be associated with anthropogenic climate change and expanding urban heat islands. However, this coastal ocean-atmosphere-land system has received relatively little attention. This is largely due to the fact that until recently, earth system models were not capable of simulating the coastal fog that links the component systems, making it difficult to interpret historical observations or to project climate change impacts on these integrated systems. Furthermore, fundamental ecological measurements are obscured by the presence of fog, making it very difficult to understand how coast redwoods will respond to changes in fog. Understanding this coastal ocean-atmosphere-land system will not only provide much needed information for coast redwood resilience, but will also establish a foundation for future work on critical fog-mediated vulnerabilities to a range of coastal terrestrial, riparian, and intertidal ecosystems, and human-affected sectors including irrigated agriculture, wildfire management, public health, air and ground traffic, tourism, and urban energy and water consumption.In this project, an interdisciplinary team will leverage recent advances in regional ocean-atmosphere-land modeling and laser spectrometry to provide an unprecedented exploration of this coastal integrated natural-human system. Activities to broaden the impacts of the project include outreach to land managers and interpreters, interactions between modeling and public outreach, participation in a climate change documentary, media outreach, and interdisciplinary training of Hispanic Serving Institution undergraduates and two postdoctoral scholars.The results of this project will be (1) a process-level understanding of the coastal fog-mediated interactions between ocean-atmosphere circulation and coast redwood ecophysiology, (2) projections of fog, coast redwood resilience, and upwelling under anthropogenic scenarios of global greenhouse gas forcing and local urban heat islands along with the ocean-atmosphere-land feedbacks to this forcing, and (3) an understanding of how the projected vulnerabilities of this iconic coastal species can influence human perceptions about climate change and climate-friendly behaviors. The project will focus on three activities with essential linkages across the team: (1) U.S. Pacific Coast simulations of ocean and atmospheric circulation will be used to understand how the timing and strength of upwelling interacts with the atmosphere and coastal land systems to produce and maintain coastal fog (Samelson, Skyllingstad, de Szoeke, Oregon State Univ.; O'Brien, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory). (2) Laser spectrometer measurements of atmospheric carbonyl sulfide in coast redwood forests will provide the unique capability of measuring primary productivity and physiological regulation in the presence of fog (Campbell, UC Merced; Berry, Carnegie Institution; Dawson, UC Berkeley; Seibt, UCLA). The resulting ecological information will be used to develop regional simulations of coast redwood physiology under current and projected fog regimes. (3) The new scientific understanding of coast redwood resilience will form the foundation of surveys measuring human attitudes, knowledge, values, place connections, and current climate-related behaviors with regard to coast redwoods (Ardoin, Stanford Univ.). These survey data, along with the ecological data from ongoing research, will create a foundation for educational interventions that build on people's current place relationships, understandings, and existing behaviors.