CE2COAST: Downscaling Climate and Ocean Change to Services: Thresholds and Opportunities

Global change from anthropogenic forcing will have significant impacts at regional and coastal scales on marine systems, dependent socioeconomic systems and ocean services and can strongly interact with regional/local drivers/pressures such as fishing, pollution, and eutrophication. The challenges of understanding climate and ocean change at European and global scales require expertise exceeding that available from one single nation. CE2COAST delivers transnational added value through strategically combining national expertise across the disciplines of oceanography, marine biogeochemistry, marine ecology, data and database management, earth system, marine and ecosystem modelling and science and policy communication. This transnational collaboration, adopting normalised approaches to understanding ocean change, facilitates optimal comparative studies to be performed across regions and ocean services. The primary novelty of CE2COAST will be an observation-driven synthesis of statistical and dynamical downscaling methodology to provide better process resolution and system representations that are tailored to regional/coastal domains and their associated pressures/services. It will compile and analyze new targeted, fit-for-purpose (case study driven) marine observations datasets from existing and new project observations of ocean climate, biogeochemistry and relevant ecological indicators. CE2COAST will deliver benchmarked single and ensemble Earth System Model simulations from the CMIP archive that will be downscaled for hindcasting and projecting physical and biogeochemical fields in the regional and coastal ocean providing past/future states and climate change signals on time scales of up to 40 years into the past and up to 80 years into the future. CE2COAST will deliver estimates of natural and forced variability of relevant oceanic processes and variables as well as regional and local mean states and trends of key ocean service pressures, across the project observational and modelling spectrum. A capacity to understand and predict these impacts on regional seas and coasts is essential for developing robust strategies for adaptation and mitigation. To inform adaptation policy to ocean and coastal change, CE2COAST will deliver key new knowledge to end-users through a range of dissemination activities. It will initiate and coordinate stakeholder clusters who will participate in project-long decision making, facilitating strong co-production of relevant and targeted science products tailored for specific scientific, management, regulatory, industrial and ecosystem service applicable assessments. It will develop a Continuous Professional Development (CPD) module and hold a dedicated summer school. CE2COAST will develop strategic coherence of national research strategies to combat consequences of ocean change through an integration of observation strategies where collective learning and slipstreaming leads to faster progress as each partner has an expertise and all can learn faster. This will deliver an integrated European evaluation of marine health and challenges. The primary novelty of CE2COAST will be an observation-driven synthesis of statistical and dynamical downscaling methodology to provide better process resolution and system representations that are tailored to regional/coastal domains and their associated pressures/services. To inform adaptation policy to ocean and coastal change, CE2COAST will deliver key new knowledge to end-users through a range of dissemination activities. CE2COAST will increase the profile of European Science in the International research arena. It will contribute knowledge crucial to reducing in economic, scientific and social disparity across Europe. CE2COAST will deliver information relevant to institutional strategies with a focus on JPI Climate, JPI Oceans, IPCC, UN SDGs (primarily Goal 14.2, 14.3 and 14.A), MSP, CFP, MSFD, WFD, the Arctic Council.