Why coastal upwelling is expected to increase along the western Iberian Peninsula over the next century?

Magda Catarina Sousa; Maite deCastro; Ines Alvarez; Moncho Gomez-Gesteira; João Miguel Dias

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.03.046

Why coastal upwelling is expected to increase along the western Iberian Peninsula over the next century?

Sci Total Environ. 2017 Aug 15:592:243-251. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.03.046. Epub 2017 Mar 17.

Authors

Magda Catarina Sousa¹, Maite deCastro², Ines Alvarez³, Moncho Gomez-Gesteira², João Miguel Dias⁴

Affiliations

¹ CESAM, Departamento de Física, Universidade de Aveiro, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal. Electronic address: mcsousa@ua.pt.
² EPhysLab (Environmental Physics Laboratory), Universidade de Vigo, Facultade de Ciencias, Ourense, Spain.
³ CESAM, Departamento de Física, Universidade de Aveiro, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal; EPhysLab (Environmental Physics Laboratory), Universidade de Vigo, Facultade de Ciencias, Ourense, Spain.
⁴ CESAM, Departamento de Física, Universidade de Aveiro, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal.

PMID: 28319711
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.03.046

Abstract

Former studies about coastal upwelling along the Western Iberian Peninsula (WIP) using historical data indicated contradictory results, showing either its strengthening or reduction, while previous studies using Global Climate Models (GCMs) indicated that global warming is likely to intensify this phenomenon although predicting different rates and not justifying the patterns found. Taking advantage of the recent high spatial resolution Regional Climate Models (RCMs) projections from EURO-CORDEX project (Representative Concentration Pathway, RCP 8.5), detailed higher accuracy estimations of the spatio-temporal trends of Upwelling Index (UI) along the WIP coast were performed in this study, integrating the coastal mesoscale effects within the framework of climate change. Additionally, this research brings new insights about the origin of the WIP coastal upwelling intensification over the next century. These new projections clarified the upwelling strengthening rates predicted along the coast of the WIP from 2006 to 2099 revealing more prominent changes in the northern limit of the region (25-30m³s^-1km^-1 per decade between 41.5 and 42.5°N). Trends observed at high latitudes of the region were found to be induced by the displacement of the Azores High, which will intensify (0.03hPa per decade) and drift northeastward (10km per decade) during the 21st century.

Keywords: Azores High; CORDEX; Coastal warming; Western Iberian Peninsula.