Climate Change on Newfoundland and Labrador Shelves: Results From a Regional Downscaled Ocean and Sea-Ice Model Under an A1B Forcing Scenario 2011–2069

Climate change may affect ocean and ice conditions in coastal oceans and thus have significant impacts on coastal infrastructure, marine navigation, and marine ecosystems. In this study a three-dimensional ice-ocean model is developed to examine likely changes of ocean and ice conditions over the Newfoundland and Labrador Shelves in response to climate change. The model is configured with a horizontal grid of approximately 7 km and a vertical grid of 46 levels and is run from 1979 to 2069. The projection period is 2011 to 2069 under a median emission scenario A1B used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. For the projection period, the surface atmospheric forcing fields used are from the Canadian Regional Climate Model over the North Atlantic. The open boundary conditions come from the Canadian Global Climate Model, Version 3 (CGCM3), adjusted for the 1981-2010 mean of the Simple Ocean Data Assimilation model output. The simulated fields over the 1981-2010 period have patterns consistent with observations. Over the Newfoundland and Labrador Shelves during the projection period, the model shows general trends of warming, freshening, and decreasing ice. From 2011 to 2069, the model projects that under A1B sea surface temperature will increase by 1.4 degrees C; bottom temperature will increase by 1.6 degrees C; sea surface salinity will decrease by 0.7; bottom salinity will decrease by 0.3; and sea-ice extent will decrease by 70%. The sea level will rise by 0.11 m at the St. John's tide-gauge station because of oceanographic change, and the freshwater transport of the Labrador Current will double as a result of freshening. The regional ice-ocean model reproduces more realistic present climate conditions and projects considerably different future climate conditions than CGCM3.