Modelling the Reef’s Past and Future: Upwelling, Warming, and Resilience in a Changing Climate
Clothilde Langlais
1. The Great Barrier Reef (GBR) faces increasing pressures from climate change and land-based pollution. To support effective reef management and reporting, there is a need for high-resolution, physically and biogeochemically realistic simulations that represent both historical conditions and potential future change.
2. We developed a detailed 12-year eReefs hindcast and conducted future climate simulations through dynamic downscaling of CMIP6 models to the GBR.
3. We assessed the variability of cold and nutrient-rich upwelling and intrusions, operating at the shelf break.
The hindcast shows substantial improvements in the simulation of shelf-break currents, upwelling and El Niño influences. Climate projections show: Sea surface warming of 0.31°C (1.5°C scenario) and 0.56°C (2°C scenario) extending to 200+ m , but associated with subsurface cooling. The upwelling of subsurface cooling provides potential mitigation of reef warming at 1.5°C, but loss of this buffer at 2°C .
4. Marine and climate scientists interested in coupled ocean-biogeochemical modelling. Stakeholders and researchers in the fields of environmental modelling, ecological forecasting, and coastal resilience.
5. eReefs, Great Barrier Reef, hydrodynamic modelling, biogeochemistry, climate change, CMIP6 downscaling, reef heat stress, upwelling, East Australian Current, water quality, hindcast, coral bleaching, reef resilience, model development
Please use this thread for discussion about this plenary talk.