In a new five-year project, UCLA researchers will make the first detailed models predicting how climbing temperatures will affect the coastal climate in four eastern boundary upwelling systems, or EBUSes, which are off the coasts California and Oregon, Peru and Chile, southern Africa, and Spain and northern Africa. The project is supported by a $2 million grant received this month from the National Science Foundation.
Current global climate models provide sketchy predictions of changes for EBUS areas, partly because the regions are such narrow slices of the globe. To overcome that flaw, the research team will develop the first fine-tuned model of the EBUSes to simulate the complex interaction between the ocean and the atmosphere, identify the difference between the natural variations in the ecosystems and variations due to climate change, and predict whether changes in cloud cover will allow in more or less sunlight and warmth.
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Image: Mary Ann Wilson