Present and Future Activities on the North West Shelf Susan Wijffels | Dynamic Ocean Theme Leader For the WfO team WEALTH FROM OCEANS NATIONAL RESEARCH FLAGSHIP

CSIRO is working in the Northwest across a broad range of areas  Oceans and climate from decadal through daily processes  Biogeochemical and carbon cycling  Ecosystem characterisation, function, dynamics and biodiversity including human impacts Future Would like to see more synthesis across disciplines Data scarcity remains a huge challenge Target development of modelling/prediction systems initially based on those deployed in other regions (BlueLink/eReefs) but tailored for this unique region Improved ocean information systems and services for government, public and industry Summary

Monsoons Intraseasonal Variability Indian Ocean Dipole El Niño – Southern Oscillation Decadal Variability Biogeochemical Cycling Indonesian Throughflow Large-Scale Modes of Atmosphere-Ocean Variability Southern Annular Mode

Mean Flow Field

On interannual time scales – remote winds control the ocean structure in this region

To manage these regions we need to know the large-scale influences (plus regional information, e.g. continental shelf processes):

International INSTANT Project Australia,USA,France,Indonesia,Netherlands

Indonesian Throughflow Flow variability with depth Surface layers and deep layers are decoupled and forced differently

Ocean response to Tropical Cyclones CSIRO’s fully non-linear, 3-D hydrodynamic model, SHOC, is used to study the ocean response to Tropical Cyclones on the NWS Surface currents and temperature response to Tropical Cyclone Bobby is shown  Madeleine Cahill and Peter Craig,CSIRO For Woodside

IMOS Indonesian Though Flow shelf array: IMOS/AIMS/CSIRO

FRDC – management implication of climate change on fisheries in Western Australia WA Department of Fisheries, CSIRO Wealth from Oceans Flagship Objectives Assess future climate change effects on Western Australia marine environments using a suite of IPCC model projections, downscaled to the key shelf regions and the spatial and temporal scales relevant for key fisheries Examine the modeled shelf climate change scenarios on fisheries and implications of historic and future climate change effects Projected changes in winter chlorophyll concentration Downscaling modelClimate model A weakened Leeuwin Current and lower eddy energetics in the 2060’s cause WA waters to be less productive

Caring for Our Country Identifying threats to marine biodiversity of the Ningaloo World Heritage Area A collaboration between: CSIRO – Status of World Heritage Values: reef fish, sharks, turtles – Movement and habitat use of iconic megafauna DEC  Status of World Heritage Values: reef fish DoF  Distribution and intensity of fishing effort

Pilbara Marine Conservation Partnership Goals Regional scale assessment of condition and threats to biodiversity; coral reef health, benthos, fish and sharks, Better understand variations in coral reef health and resilience in context of key environmental drivers; habitat/biodiversity, oceanographic connectivity, climate change, fishing pressure, nutrient supply, cyclones Enhance net conservation benefits to globally significant coral reef systems, detect medium and long term trends. Project commenced late 2012, first tasks to map biodiversity and connectivity now being conducted by CSIRO Systematic biodiversity samplingConnectivity modelling

CSIRO CARBON CLUSTER ACTIVITIES Objectives carbon inventory information on sources, speciation, stocks and flows process understanding of changes in carbon cycling resulting from natural and anthropogenic change Activities 1.Carbon sequestration, stoichiometry and stores potential of representative Australian coastal ecosystems 2.Benthic community metabolism and benthic-pelagic coupling 3.Pelagic community metabolism in Australian coastal waters 4.Scaling up to regional inventories and data assimilation and Parameter and Model Uncertainties

Activities in NW Oceans Institute through Carlos will have a focus in NW on carbon sequestration in seagrass, mangroves and sediment Some work on pelagic C subject to Southern Surveyor cruise being approved (P. Thompson) CC would like access to carbon relevant data collected under WAMSI and other projects CSIRO activities will be principally around the development of better models, assimilation and scaling methods, and economic assessment

NW shelf Management Strategies revisited Previous large scale effects of fish trawling project (Sainsbury 1987,88) CSIRO-WA Fisheries proposal “Recovery after trawling: Resurveying the North West Shelf after 25 years of sustainable trawling” Different spatial fishing zoning systems Natural experiment to determine impacts and recovery Source: WA Fisheries

CSIRO is working in the Northwest across a broad range of areas  Oceans and climate from decadal through daily processes  Biogeochemical and carbon cycling  Ecosystem characterisation, function, dynamics and biodiversity Future Would like to see more synthesis across disciplines Data scarcity remains a huge challenge Target tailored modelling/prediction systems initially based on those deployed in other regions (BlueLink/eReefs) Improved ocean information systems and services for government, public and industry Summary

The key R&D partners -BoM, CSIRO AIMS Goal is to build 1. A framework to explore and predict the impact of multiple factors such as climate change (ocean temperature and pH) and water quality (nutrients, chlorophyll, turbidity) 2. An interactive, visual picture of the reef and its component parts, accessible to all. eReefs

What would it take to start building a similar framework/tool for the NWS?

Thank you Wealth from Oceans Susan Wijffels Theme Leader The Dynamic Ocean WEALTH FROM OCEANS NATIONAL RESEARCH FLAGSHIP Contributors: Andy Steven, Russ Babcock, Matt VanderKlift, Peter Thompson, Ming Feng, Andreas Schiller,

Integrated Project 2: the basics Hydrodynamic and biogeochemical modeling using fully coupled models Quantification of benthic and pelagic productivity Sources of nutrients and the importance of benthic/pelagic coupling Ecological connectivity Catchment-ocean interactions – Regions of freshwater Influence Climate impacts Trophodynamic interactions Transport and fate of nutrients and other potential contaminants from dredging and oil spills Presentation title | Presenter name 21 |