Co-Convenors:
Sanae Chiba (JAMSTEC, Japan)
Nicholas A. Bond (JISAO, University of Washington, USA)

Invited Speakers:
Nathan Bindoff (University of Tasmania, Australia)
Shin-ichi Uye (Hiroshima University, Japan)

There is a strong scientific consensus that human-induced global warming is occurring, with this signal having been detected even into the deep ocean. The effects of climate change are not restricted to just temperature, but also have been observed in water properties such as pH and oxygen concentrations. The world’s oceans will continue to be influenced by natural variability over a range of temporal and spatial scales, which can obscure anthropogenic effects. The confounding effects of intrinsic fluctuations in the physical forcing can be especially challenging to sort out for marine ecosystems, due to the complexity of the interactions controlling the biogeochemistry of the ocean. But that challenge needs to be met in order to be able to predict probable shifts and trends in the structure and function of marine ecosystems, and to carry out effective mitigation. This session consists of papers on topics related to disentangling natural variability from anthropogenic climate change with respect to marine ecosystems. We expect papers featuring a variety of approaches, and lively discussions of their relative merits and limitations.

Co-Convenors:
Julie Hall (National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, New Zealand)
Coleen Moloney (University of Cape Town, South Africa)

Invited Speaker:
Carl van der Lingen (Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, South Africa)

Individual organisms experience the effects of climate change directly. Their responses are governed by genotype, phenotype, physiology and behaviour. The responses by individuals ultimately influence the impacts of climate change on individuals, populations, communities and ecosystems. This session aims to understand and explore the rich variety of genetic and physiological responses to climate change, and to assess the progress we have made in predicting the presence, extent and persistence of the impacts of these responses at the level of the ecosystem.

Co-Convenors:
Adriaan Rijnsdorp (IMARES, The Netherlands)
Christian Möllmann (University of Hamburg, Germany)

Invited Speaker:
John K. Pinnegar (Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, Lowestoft Laboratory, UK)

Climate change will impact marine ecosystems and their habitats in various ways. Effects will include changed distribution and productivity of marine organisms, connectivity and adaptability of populations as well as overall biodiversity. The different climate-induced changes will have implications for the spatial management of our living resources and marine ecosystems. Especially migratory fish stocks move between management units leading to conflicts between resource users. Hence their dynamics will become more uncertain under climate change, and conservation objectives have to be re-defined or adapted. This session aims to discuss how climate change may affect the human activities on the sea and explore how society can adapt its policies and uses of the marine ecosystem.

Co-Convenors:
Iñigo Losada (University of Cantabria, Spain)
Poh Poh Wong (University of Adelaide, Australia)

Invited Speaker:
Poh Poh Wong (University of Adelaide, Australia)

Scientific evidence has been presented during the last decades that the coasts and low-lying areas, especially deltas, are experiencing the adverse consequences of the hazards related to climate change. Saltmarshes, coral reefs, mangroves and other relevant ecosystems are and will be suffering degradation affecting seriously their sustainability and the services they provide. Besides, coastal human settlements are highly vulnerable to climate change, especially to extreme events. The combination of sea level rise with the alteration of sea surface temperature, storm surges, waves, run-off/precipitation and acidification are some of the relevant elements to be considered. Besides, external stressors mostly originated by increasing human-pressure such as land-use, hydrological changes in catchments, groundwater extraction or reduced sediment supply exacerbate the impact of climate change. Erosion, flooding, saltwater intrusion, ecosystem deterioration and migration or increasing valuable human assets at risk are some of the immediate impacts requiring further research and immediate action.
Contributions to this session may help to clarify and quantify the drivers of climate change impacts in coastal areas, from the evidence to projections as well as those considering the impacts and adaptation options for natural and human coastal systems.

Co-Convenors:
Frank Whitney (Canada)
Evgeniy Yakushev (Norwegian Institute for Water Research, Norway/Russia)

Invited Speakers:
Steven Bograd (Southwest Fisheries Science Center, NOAA-Fisheries, USA)
Felix Janssen (Max-Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, Germany)

Modifications to ocean circulation due to global warming are being observed broadly throughout our oceans. Surface warming of our planet reduces oxygen solubility in seawater, increases mixed layer buoyancy and reduces ice formation in important ventilation areas. All of these processes lead to a reduction in oxygen transport to the interior waters of major ocean basins and coastal seas. As a transition zone between the continents and the ocean, coastal waters are natural susceptibility to oxygen-deficiency and anoxia due to both the input of low density coastal water and topographic restrictions which can increase the residence time of bottom waters.

Oxygen depletion inevitably leads to biological impacts ranging from altered microbial activity (e.g., enhanced de-nitrification, N₂O production or sulfate reduction) to whole community displacements (loss of fisheries, invasions of displaced species into new habitat) which are poorly understood. As well, oxygen losses in the interior ocean are accompanied by increased acidity as carbon dioxide levels rise. These two trends may have synergistic impacts on biota. Contributions across these diverse topics, as well as on expansions of coastal dead zones caused by non-climate related change, are invited.

Co-Convenors:
Gretta Pecl (University of Tasmania, Australia)
Martin Visbeck (IFM-GEOMAR, Germany)

Invited Speakers:
Mike Litzow (University of Tasmania, Australia)
Jacob Schewe (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany)

The ocean plays a central role in the regional and global climate system. Its circulation, temperature and salinity patterns, nutrient distributions and chemical composition are mainly influenced by changes in the atmosphere and fluxes from the land. This ocean state provides the basis for the marine ecosystem, which itself has several complex interdependencies. From complex system theory we know that many systems tend to respond in an almost linear fashion to changes in the forcing. However, at some point a critical value can be reached, and the system responds with a dramatic switch-like behavior into a new stable state, having passed a critical tipping point. Evidence for tipping points in nature is often generated only after the consequences of a major shift become obvious. Predicting the existence and effects of tipping points on ocean state or ecosystem function are major, and likely increasing, challenges for both scientists and resource managers. This session will provide an overview of some of the known tipping points in the marine system and invites contributions to elaborate on our mechanistic understanding of these or provide evidence or a strong theoretical basis for new tipping points. Disciplines to be covered range from ocean circulation dynamics, sea ice formation, de-oxygenation, through to dramatic shifts in ecosystem structure and function, and beyond.

Co-Convenors:
James Christian (Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Canada)
Kitack Lee (POSTECH, Korea)

Invited Speakers:
Dr. Masao Ishii (Meteorological Research Institute, Japan)

The carbon cycle is the primary mechanism by which ocean processes determine future atmospheric CO₂ concentration and associated climate changes. Ocean acidification affects all marine biota and future ocean carbon fluxes and ocean-atmosphere CO₂ exchange. This session includes presentations on the ocean carbon cycle, its interactions with the biogeochemical cycles of nitrogen and other nutrient elements, and ocean acidification. Processes of interest are ocean-atmosphere exchange, fluxes across the pycnocline, interactions of CO₂ with the carbon cycle that determine the future course of ocean acidification and ocean CO₂ concentration, and acidification impacts on biota.

Co-Convenors:
David Checkley (Scripps Institution of Oceanography, USA)
Candyce Clark (Climate Project Office, NOAA, USA)

The ocean observation workshop is to address the new multidisciplinary requirements (both climate and nonclimate) being placed on the marine observing community. The primary objective of the workshop is to begin consideration of the approaches needed to move these new multidisciplinary and diverse observing requirements forward into the next decade. Particular attention will be to follow up on the discussions at the symposium theme session on “Systematic, sustained and integrated global ocean observations” that are directed at how to integrate new biogeochemical, biodiversity and ecosystem shifts observations into a sustained observing system integrated with established monitoring systems. The Framework for Ocean Observing document will serve as the foundation for these exchanges. A panel of several scientists with diverse expertise is selected to prepare short presentations and then lead the audience in discussion. An intense effort to incorporate early career scientists into the workshop is essential to ensure that a cadre of future observationalists is available.

Co-Convenors:
Enrique Curchitser (Rutgers University, USA)
Icarus Allen (Plymouth Marine Laboratory, UK)

Invited Speakers:
William Cheung (Fisheries Centre, UBC, Canada)
Villy Christensen (University of British Columbia, Canada)
Jason Holt (National Oceanographic Centre, UK)
Charles Stock (Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, USA)

This 2-day workshop aims to assemble scientists interested in making and interpreting projections of ecosystem responses to future climate change. The goal is to describe different approaches to modeling the impacts of climate variability on marine ecosystems, their ability to support sustainable harvesting and to highlight the strengths and limitations of the different approaches. We seek models that address both global and regional ecosystems and are particularly interested in presentations covering a range of models from statistical to mechanistic approaches including mass-balance (ECOPATH), size-based, minimalist, individual-based (IBMs) and end-to-end (E2E) models. Emphasis will be placed on models that examine trophic interactions as well as approaches that link biogeochemical processes with higher trophic level production. Presentations that discuss advantages and limitations of particular approaches and discuss the quantification of uncertainty in climate forced simulations are encouraged.

Co-Convenors:
Ik Kyo Chung (PNU, Korea)
Gabriel Grimsditch (UNEP)
Jerker Tamelander (UNEP)

Invited Speaker:
Núria Marbà (Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies, CSIC-UIB, Spain)

Blue Carbon is a relatively recent concept in finding nature-based solutions to climate change. It recognizes the role that coastal ecosystems can play in climate change mitigation as well as adaptation, as these ecosystems (in particular mangroves, intertidal marshes, seaweed beds and seagrass beds) hold vast CO2 reservoirs. In fact, the rates of carbon sequestration and storage in coastal ecosystems are comparable to and often higher than those rates in carbon-rich terrestrial ecosystems such as tropical rainforests or peatlands. Given the recent heightened interest in coastal Blue Carbon, the science surrounding the concept is advancing rapidly; especially concerning our understanding of how coastal ecosystems sequester and store carbon, where the ‘hotspots’ for coastal Blue Carbon are, how rapidly the ecosystems are being lost or modified because of anthropogenic disturbances and climatic changes, and the releases of carbon that follow ecosystem loss of modification. Although our understanding of these crucial questions is improving, there are still large gaps in our knowledge and our scientific understanding of these processes and how to manage them.

The objectives of this 1-day workshop are to: a) synthesize the current status of scientific knowledge of the role that coastal ecosystems play in climate change mitigation, and to identify how this knowledge can support management strategies and policy decisions; b) identify the major gaps in knowledge concerning coastal Blue Carbon that still need to be addressed; c) analyze the major threats to coastal Blue Carbon and how different damaging anthropogenic practices as well as climate change are responsible for causing greenhouse gas emissions from these ecosystems, as well as eroding the various ecosystem services provided; d) provide Blue Carbon science-based policy recommendations for the management of coastal carbon sinks; e) raise awareness of successful coastal Blue Carbon case studies around the world; and f) explore possibilities for Blue Carbon policy,
science and pilot projects in the region of East Asia and set out a plan of action for Blue Carbon in the region of East Asia.

The outcomes of the workshop are expected to be: (1) a white paper/workshop report, providing a synthesis of current status of scientific knowledge on coastal Blue Carbon, identification of major gaps in knowledge, successful Blue Carbon case studies, and management strategies that protect and enhance these carbon stocks, including an analysis of threats and damaging activities to coastal Blue Carbon and how they are responsible for greenhouse gas emissions; and (2) a plan of action for Blue Carbon in the region of East Asia, outlining research needs, policy gaps and possible pilot projects.