Upwelling systems are special places in the oceans where nutrient-enriched water is brought into the euphotic zone to fuel phytoplankton blooms that, via marine food-web interactions, create the world’s richest fish resources. This book introduces the reader to the interdisciplinary science of upwelling and provides a comprehensive overview of the world’s most productive marine ecosystems in the context of climate variability, climate change and human exploitation. This material presented is suitable for undergraduate and postgraduate study or just for anyone interested to learn about the creation of life in the oceans and how this is compromised by human activities.

Upwelling is one of the major physical processes driving the biogeochemistry of the ocean system. It dominates primary productivity in the world?s oceans, accounting for 80?90% of new production. However, because of the physical conditions that have to be met to generate upwelling, this production is concentrated in just a few places, e.g., in the coastal waters of major eastern boundary currents off California, Peru, Mauritania, and Namibia, where productivity leads to major fishing grounds. These areas account for about 50% of the world?s fish catch, underlining the importance of upwelling to humankind. Source rocks for oil formed in ancient coastal upwelling environments, making their study useful for improving oil exploration models. Upwelling also occurs in the open ocean, especially along the equator and beneath the westerly winds in the subarctic Pacific and the Southern Ocean, where the ocean?s silica budget is transformed by the deposition of the remains of siliceous phytoplankton. Because phytoplankton, the grass of the sea, can extract CO2 from the atmosphere, changes in the intensity of upwelling and associated biological productivity through time may have influenced climate. This volume uses an interdisciplinary approach to establish how upwelling systems work, how they vary through time, and whether or not they have a significant influence on the global carbon cycle. An understanding of how these largely wind-driven biogeochemical systems work today, and how they responded to past fluctuations in climate, is essential in predicting how they and their associated living resources may change in the future. One conclusion is that these systems exert a major influence on the global cycle of nutrients, a factor that contributes to making the coastal regions major sinks for organic carbon. This book recommends new strategies for observation, sampling, monitoring, experimentation, and modeling as the basis for improving forecasts of the behavior of upwelling systems. It will be of interest to physical oceanographers, marine biologists, fisheries scientists, marine organic and inorganic chemists, marine geologists, petroleum explorers, paleoceanographers, and paleoclimatologists.

Eastern boundary upwelling systems (EBUS) have historically received attention from the scientific community due to their impact on the economic development of these highly productive systems. Remote sensing, numerical modeling, and in situ observations have increased their spatial and temporal resolutions during the last 40 years in their strategy to provide reliable products about the actual state of the ocean. The assembly of several data sources currently constitutes an opportunity to increase our knowledge about the present and future state of the relatively narrow and highly variable EBUS. The primary forcing mechanism in the upwelling regions is the wind stress in areas close to the coast. Long-term trends in wind intensity in upwelling areas present considerable uncertainties as the different wind databases produce divergent results. On the other hand, although the effect of climate change in the interior ocean is increasing temperatures in upwelling areas, the long-term trends seem to be in the opposite direction. Hence, assessing the long-term impact of the environmental conditions on upwelling development represents a major challenge for the scientific community. This special issue aims to discuss the state-of-the-art understanding of dynamical processes governing the ocean at the eastern boundary upwelling systems in a changing ocean.

This book aims at providing students and researchers an advanced integrative overview on zooplankton ecology, covering marine and freshwater organisms, from microscopic phagotrophic protists, to macro-jellyfishes and active fish larvae. The first book section addresses zooplanktonic organisms and processes, the second section is devoted to zooplankton spatial and temporal distribution patterns and trophic dynamics, and the final section is dedicated to emergent methodological approaches (e.g., omics). Book chapters include comprehensive synthesis, observational and manipulative studies, and sediment-based analysis, a vibrant imprint of benthic-pelagic coupling and ecosystem connectivity. Most chapters also address the impacts of anticipated environmental changes (e.g., warming, acidification).

Covers the traditional range of topics in regional oceanography. An important aspect of work is its novel approach to a description of the features which give each ocean region its character. The two core principles are the use of the most modern database for all maps of regional distributions of properties and a discussion of all observed features within a frame of reference developed from ocean dynamics, rather than based on the simple geographical approach. The ocean's role in climate variability and climate change is described in detail. The book also includes an evaluation of all major international research projects such as FGGE, IIOE and TOGA. The SI system is used throughout. The use of modern data and inclusion of the oceanographic literature up to 1992 and early 1993 make it a useful reference text.

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