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MedSeA - Mediterranean Sea Acidification in a changing climate

Project website:
http://medsea-project.eu/

Summary information

Funding:FP7, Collaborative research project, Medium-scale focused research project
Total cost:6000000
Ec contribution:3490169
Start date:2011-02-01
End date:2014-01-31
Duration:36 months
Coordinator:Patrizia Ziveri
Organisation:Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB)
Themes:ocean acidification & climate change, Mediterranean Sea
Regio:Mediterranean
Keywords:ocean acidification, Mediterranean Sea, climate change, biogeochemistry, ecosytems, modelling, ecosystem goods and services, socio-economic impacts, adaptation strategies
Project name:MedSeA - Mediterranean Sea Acidification in a changing climate
Project summary:The MedSeA project will assess uncertainties, risks and thresholds related to Mediterranean acidification at organismal, ecosystem and economical scales. Our focused basin-scale approach will also emphasize conveying the acquired scientific knowledge to a wider audience of reference users, while suggesting policy measures for adaptation and mitigation that will vary from one region to another. As a result, project managers and stakeholders in the Mediterranean area will have, for the first time, a set of up-to-date vulnerability maps upon which future action- plans can be designed. New observational and experimental data on Mediterranean organism and ecosystem responses to acidification will be generated and fed into existing fine-scale models of the Mediterranean Sea that are modified to better represent key processes, and then used to project future changes. The MedSeA strategy will thus focus on a selected set of key ecosystem and socio-economic variables that are likely to be affected by both acidification and warming, studying the combination of effects through ship-based observations, laboratory and mesocosm experiments, physical-biogeochemical-ecosystem modeling, and economical analyses. Future projections are a central focus in MedSeA, which aims to provide best estimates and related uncertainties of future changes in Mediterranean Sea pH, CaCO3 saturation states, and other biogeochemical-ecosystem variables, assessing the changes in habitat suitability of relevant ecological and economically-important species. This fully integrated programme will be influenced by exchanging know-how and acquired information between disciplines to deliver a complete assessment of the impact of ocean acidification under changing climate in terms of chemistry, biodiversity, ecological function, and economic susceptibility of the Mediterranean region.
http://medseaclimatechange.wordpress.com/