[Submission]: Water temperature and salinity anomaly

[BBeltz1]

Primary Contact

[email protected]

Secondary Contact

No response

Data Name (This will be the displayed title in Catalog)

Water temperature and salinity anomaly

Indicator Name (as exists in ecodata)

New Indicator

Family (Which group is this indicator associated with?)

• Oceanographic
• Habitat
• Lower trophic levels
• Megafauna
• Social
• Economic

Data Description

The data presented here are the annual mean anomalies of surface and bottom temperature and salinity from the EcoMon surveys. The data are processed similarly to the zooplankton anomaly data, using the expected value on day of the year the sample was collected. The values for the base period for the anomaly calculation included the entire time series from 1977-2023.

Introduction to Indicator (Please explain your indicator)

These values show the annual anomaly of salinity and temperature for each ecoregion.

Key Results and Visualization

Plotted as a time series, the trends and decadal patterns in salinity and temperature become evident during periods of low salinity (1990's), high temperature (2010s), and most recently with high temperature but lower salinity (2023). These trends appear consistent across EPUs.

Implications

With respect to regime changes and patterns driving lower trophic levels, the data presented here can be used to highlight important events like the cooler low salinity period in the 1990s that were dominated by smaller bodied copepods concomitant with regime shifts in recruitment. The most recent data point to a shift to lower salinity, but higher temperature, which is unusual compared to previous years.

Spatial Scale

By EPU

Temporal Scale

Annual

Synthesis Theme

• Multiple System Drivers
• Regime Shifts
• Ecosystem Reorganization

Define Variables

Units and definitions are included in the data set under 'Units'

Indicator Category

• Published Methods
• Extensive analysis, not yet published
• Syntheses of published information
• Database pull
• Database pull with analysis
• Other

If other, please specify indicator category

No response

Data Contributors

Ryan Morse, Harvey Walsh

Point(s) of Contact

Ryan Morse ([email protected])

Affiliation

NEFSC

Public Availability

Source data are publicly available.

Accessibility and Constraints

Please email [email protected] for further information and queries of copepod staged abundance data