Two mechanisms responsible for marine ecosystem regime shifts from fish landings data off the West Coast of California (WCC)

Jianjun Xu, Alfred M. Powell

Environmental Science and Technology Center, George Mason University, Fairfax, USA.
NOAA/NESDIS/Center for Satellite Applications and Research (STAR), College Park, USA.

DOI: 10.4236/ns.2013.54062                

Abstract

This investigation focuses on two mechanisms over the North Pacific connecting decadal regime shifts to regional ecosystem impacts. The physical conditions show the impacts of the atmospheric surface wind stress and the sea surface temperature (SST) physical conditions on the fish landings along the west coast of California (WCC) from 1928-2008. The two mechanisms are identified by the two types of wind stress (e.g. westerly-easterly; or cyclonic-anticyclonic) anomaly over the central North Pacific which results in SST anomalies in the WCC. In both mechanism cases, the local warm (cold) SST anomaly leads to the number of fish species rising (falling) in the WCC region. In addition, the wind stress and SST anomaly pattern over the North Pacific is closely related to the intensity of the regime shifts as identified in the fish landings off the WCC.

Keywords

Regime Shift; Fish Landing; Physical Condition

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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