Climatic modulation of recent trends in ocean acidification in the California Current System
Researchers reconstruct the evolution of ocean acidification in the California Current System (CalCS) from 1979 through 2012 using hindcast simulations with an eddy-resolving ocean biogeochemical model forced with observation-based variations of wind and fluxes of heat and freshwater. Researchers find that domain-wide pH and ${{\rm{\Omega }}}_{\mathrm{arag}}$ in the top 60 m of the water column decreased significantly over these three decades by about −0.02 decade−1 and −0.12 decade−1, respectively. In the nearshore areas of northern California and Oregon, ocean acidification is reconstructed to have progressed much more rapidly, with rates up to 30% higher than the domain-wide trends.