Emilia Lepe, California State University, Monterey Bay

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Abstract:

Large-scale climate events such as Climate change or ENSO (El Nino Southern Oscillation) has led to a shift in terrestrial plant life (Körner and Basler, 2010). These same large-scale events will have a resulting impact on the phytoplankton phenology of the global ocean. Phytoplankton serve as the primary energy source for virtually all pelagic marine ecosystems. Therefore, any changes in Phytoplankton Bloom events will be felt upwards through higher trophic levels and may result in critical changes to marine fisheries. Here we have defined methods to observe changes in phytoplankton phenology in the North Atlantic region. We have expanded upon the work of Racault et al. (2012) and added about a decade worth of daily chlorophyll data to our analyses. In the North Atlantic, we were able to capture an earlier bloom initiation of about six days per decade and a longer bloom duration of about six days. This is the first step in summarizing all significant trends over the years 1998-2020.