TITLE:
Two mechanisms responsible for marine ecosystem regime shifts from fish landings data off the West Coast of California (WCC)
AUTHORS:
Jianjun Xu, Alfred M. Powell
KEYWORDS:
Regime Shift; Fish Landing; Physical Condition
JOURNAL NAME:
Natural Science,
Vol.5 No.4,
April
19,
2013
ABSTRACT: This investigation
focuses on two mechanisms over the North Pacific connecting decadal regime
shifts to regional ecosystem impacts. The physical conditions show the impacts
of the atmospheric surface wind stress and the sea surface temperature
(SST) physical conditions on the fish landings along the west coast of California
(WCC) from 1928-2008. The two mechanisms are identified by the two types of
wind stress (e.g. westerly-easterly; or cyclonic-anticyclonic) anomaly over
the central North Pacific which results in SST anomalies in the WCC. In both
mechanism cases, the local warm (cold) SST anomaly leads to the number of fish
species rising (falling) in the WCC region. In addition, the wind stress
and SST anomaly pattern over the North Pacific is closely related to the intensity
of the regime shifts as identified in the fish landings off the WCC.