AUTHOR=Solidoro Cosimo , Cossarini Gianpiero , Lazzari Paolo , Galli Giovanni , Bolzon Giorgio , Somot Samuel , Salon Stefano TITLE=Modeling Carbon Budgets and Acidification in the Mediterranean Sea Ecosystem Under Contemporary and Future Climate JOURNAL=Frontiers in Marine Science VOLUME=8 YEAR=2022 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/marine-science/articles/10.3389/fmars.2021.781522 DOI=10.3389/fmars.2021.781522 ISSN=2296-7745 ABSTRACT=

We simulate and analyze the effects of a high CO2 emission scenario on the Mediterranean Sea biogeochemical state at the end of the XXI century, with a focus on carbon cycling, budgets and fluxes, within and between the Mediterranean sub-basins, and on ocean acidification. As a result of the overall warming of surface water and exchanges at the boundaries, the model results project an increment in both the plankton primary production and the system total respiration. However, productivity increases less than respiration, so these changes yield to a decreament in the concentrations of total living carbon, chlorophyll, particulate organic carbon and oxygen in the epipelagic layer, and to an increment in the DIC pool all over the basin. In terms of mass budgets, the large increment in the dissolution of atmospheric CO2 results in an increment of most carbon fluxes, including the horizontal exchanges between eastern and western sub-basins, in a reduction of the organic carbon component, and in an increament of the inorganic one. The eastern sub-basin accumulates more than 85% of the absorbed atmospheric CO2. A clear ocean acidification signal is observed all over the basin, quantitatively similar to those projected in most oceans, and well detectable also down to the mesopelagic and bathypelagic layers.