SEAFIRE · Path towards a sustainable Mediterranean Sea: mitigation actions to cope with Marine Heat Waves

The ocean has stored at least 89% of the excess heat due to human-induced greenhouse gas emissions, making climate change irreversible. Ocean warming trends over the past 50 years have not been homogenous, and some regions known as Marine Hotspots have experienced warming at a rate faster than 90% of the rest of the oceans. Superimposed on these long-term trends, devastating Marine Heat Waves (MHWs) are defined as episodes of anomalous warming in the ocean that can last from a few days to months. These extreme events have drawn scientific and public attention recently due to their dramatic consequences on marine ecosystems and their associated strong socio-economic impacts. Understanding how marine ecosystems respond to climate change, and in particular to MHWs, has been recognized as a major societal challenge, and there is an evident need for a wide range of tools such as management and conservation plans to cope with the disruptive MHWs in order to prevent species depletion and ensure seafood provisioning. Within this context, SEAFIRE aims at (i) providing relevant information about the impact of MHWs by characterising them, (ii) improving our understanding of the marine ecosystem’s responses to these extreme events, (iii) proposing mitigation actions and testing their potential effectiveness on the Western Mediterranean Sea. Achieving these goals requires a multidisciplinary approach coupling physics with the ecosystem’s functioning and vulnerability. The project combines the expertise acquired by the fellow in physical processes related to MHWs with the expertise provided by the supervisor in marine ecosystem functioning and modelling. Specifically, the project will merge cutting-edge technologies from different disciplines such as high-performing physical and biogeochemical models, in-situ observations, fishing data, ecosystem modelling and a new ""Digital Twin Ocean"" platform.""