Spatial and Temporal Variability of Seawater Chemistry in Coastal Ecosystems in the Context of Global Change

Coastal systems provide a range of goods and services that are under threat from anthropogenic stressors such as ocean acidification, deoxygenation, and eutrophication. Accurately projecting future chemical conditions in these socioeconomically important regions remains difficult due to the natural spatiotemporal variability in seawater chemistry. In coastal regions, complex processes including riverine and groundwater inputs, intense benthic and pelagic metabolism, and air-sea gas exchange act in combination with physical processes affecting mixing, water column depth, and local residence times. These biogeochemical and physical processes interact over timescales of minutes to years and on spatial scales from millimeters to kilometers to drive variability in seawater chemistry. The complex, local drivers of seawater chemistry in coastal systems make it increasingly difficult to predict how seawater chemistry will change in response to anthropogenic pollutants on regional (e.g., nutrient run off) and global (e.g., carbon dioxide emissions) scales. Importantly, certain oceanographic areas and ecosystems could act as refuges from processes such as de-oxygenation and ocean acidification by elevating dissolved oxygen and pH relative to surrounding waters.

This topic invites contributions seeking to understand temporal and spatial variability of seawater chemistry in coastal systems in the context of global change. We encourage submissions that aim to elucidate drivers of seawater chemistry variability in coastal ecosystems, including how those processes might change in the future, and that highlight the effects of seawater chemistry variability on marine organisms and ecosystems. We welcome submissions that use a range of approaches to tackle these problems including in situ biogeochemical measurements, manipulative experiments, paleo perspectives, and modeling studies.