Response and Adaptation to Climate Change in the South China Sea and Coral Sea

Rongshuo Cai, Haixia Guo, Di Fu, Xiuhua Yan and Hongjian Tan

Introduction

The South China Sea (SCS) and the Coral Sea (CS) are respectively located in the northwest and southwest tropical Pacific Ocean, but share similar geographies and habitat characteristics. The SCS contains areas with significant commercial fisheries and includes coral reefs, mangroves, and seagrass beds, covering about 350.0 x 10^[1] km² (Feng et al. 1999). The CS lies to the east of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef and covers a total area of 479.3 x 10^[1] km² (Ceccarelli 2012; Welch et al. 2015), containing rich coral-dominated reef ecosystems, and related benthic and fish communities. Both of these areas are marginal seas of the western tropical Pacific Ocean and critically important for coastal communities and industries because of their biological diversity and high productivity. The Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) pointed out that, in addition to anthropogenic disturbances, the western Pacific Ocean is greatly impacted by climate change and has already experienced significant change over the past decades, putting ecosystems and fisheries at risk (Hoegh-Guldberg et al. 2014). Like other tropical areas, changes in physical and chemical ocean conditions, e.g., increasing water temperatures, rising sea level, and ocean acidification, have caused the recent northward shift of warm-water species from tropical to higher latitudes and caused coral bleaching and mortality (Cai et al. 2015; Hoegh-Guldberg et al. 2014).

Even though IPCC AR5 and other previous studies have included the SCS and CS (Cai et al. 2009, 2010, 2011, 2015; Hoegh-Guldberg et al. 2014; Welch et al. 2015), information about the responses and adaptations of these tropical marginal seas to climate change is still limited and needs further analysis. Particularly, although both the SCS and CS are located in similar tropical ocean environments and are part of the Asian-Australia monsoon region, climate conditions in these areas are dominated by different climate patterns (Hoegh-Guldberg et al. 2014). The spatial patterns of sea surface temperature (SST), sea surface salinity (SSS), and chlorophyll-a concentration as a proxy for marine productivity, and their relationships on longer time scales, including their response to global warming and the hiatus epochs before and after 1999 are not fully examined and understood. Hence, the intent of this study is to investigate the physical, chemical, and biological changes caused by climate changes in the SCS and CS, to compare their similarities and differences, and to summarize related adaptation measures in response to climate change. In this article, the spatial and temporal patterns of sea surface temperature (SST), sea surface salinity (SSS), chlorophyll-a, sea surface level (SRL), and ocean acidification will be analyzed, discussed, and compared for both seas.

Additionally, climate change and ocean acidification increase the stress on these seas, in addition to local human activities such as overfishing and pollution. Therefore, it is imperative to better understand the environmental changes in these marginal seas and to provide recommendations to better mitigate future climate-related problems.

• [1] R. Cai (H) • H. Guo • D. Fu • X. Yan • H. Tan Key Laboratory of Global Change and Marine-Atmospheric Chemistry, Third Instituteof Oceanography, State Oceanic Administration of China, Xiamen 361005, Chinae-mail: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it ; This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it © Springer International Publishing AG 2017 163 W. Leal Filho (ed.), Climate Change Adaptation in Pacific Countries, Climate Change Management, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-50094-2_10
• [2] R. Cai (H) • H. Guo • D. Fu • X. Yan • H. Tan Key Laboratory of Global Change and Marine-Atmospheric Chemistry, Third Instituteof Oceanography, State Oceanic Administration of China, Xiamen 361005, Chinae-mail: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it ; This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it © Springer International Publishing AG 2017 163 W. Leal Filho (ed.), Climate Change Adaptation in Pacific Countries, Climate Change Management, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-50094-2_10