Projected climate change impact on Baltic Sea cyanobacteria

Inga Hense (), H. Meier and Sebastian Sonntag

Climatic Change, 2013, vol. 119, issue 2, 406 pages

Abstract: Compared to other phytoplankton groups, nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteria generally prefer high water temperatures for growth and are therefore expected to benefit from global warming. We use a coupled biological-physical model with an advanced cyanobacteria life cycle model to compare the abundance of cyanobacteria in the Baltic Sea during two different time periods (1969–1998; 2069–2098). For the latter, we find prolonged growth and a more than twofold increase in the climatologically (30 years) averaged cyanobacteria biomass and nitrogen fixation. Additional sensitivity experiments indicate that the biological-physical feedback mechanism through light absorption becomes more important with global warming. In general, we find a nonlinear response of cyanobacteria to changes in the atmospheric forcing fields as a result of life-cycle related feedback mechanisms. Overall, the sensitivity of the cyanobacteria-driven system suggests that biological-physical and life-cycle related feedback mechanisms are important and must therefore be included in future projection studies. Copyright The Author(s) 2013

Keywords: Cyanobacteria; Climate change; Life cycle; N 2 -fixation; Phytoplankton; Biological-physical feedback mechanisms (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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DOI: 10.1007/s10584-013-0702-y

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