Pacific islands create oases for marine life in the middle of oligotrophic waters, but they face immediate and existential climate threats

Getting tools and data into the hands of NOAA and its stakeholders to help with adaptive management and conservation of ecosystems and fisheries is of crucial importance. We propose a collaborative CO-development effort with university of hawaii (UH), pacific islands fisheries science center (PIFSC), noaas office of ocean and atmospheric research (OAR) to design, build, and validate a core regional MOM6/cobalt ocean model for the hawaiian island chain (HIC) that will be a template to build other pacific islands models and serve the climate, ecosystems, and fisheries initiative (CEFI) goal as a critical component of the decision support system. This model system will provide a tool for understanding HIC ecosystems and fisheries implications for climate change, and with another finer island-scale nest to be built and extend these studies to the coral scale. We propose to evaluate the core model to examine the fundamental connections between the fishery ecosystems, how islands provide refuge in the oligotrophic ocean, and what the impact of climate change will mean to each ecosystem and its refugia. This fit-to-purpose system will serve as a foundation for seasonal and decadal predictions, and multi-decadal projections envisioned by the CEFI. The HIC encompasses three distinctly managed regions as defined by the western pacific regional fishery management council (WPFMC): pelagic longline, archipelagic (bottomfish, crustaceans, and precious corals), and coral reef habitat (also vital to ecosystem component species); however, these regions are not independent ecosystems. The ecosystems of the hawaiian fisheries are connected due to the impact that the islands have upon the upper ocean physics and biology in the tropical and subtropical pacific. The pelagic, archipelagic, and coral reefs are connected through ocean/atmosphere physics at various scales from seamount to reef, geochemistry, and biology. Bottomfish and crustaceans utilize coral ecosystems as nurseries, and some pelagic fish (UKU, mahi-mahi, ONO, etc.) feed upon reef fish. Effective management of these island fisheries requires an understanding of these connections and an ability to anticipate future change. WPFMC has shifted away from species- to ecosystem-based management (WPFMC, 2018), and this proposal directly enables PIFSC to support the councils focus. In short, the ecosystems of these distinctly managed fisheries are not distinct and their feedbacks have important implications for each fishery. Currently, PIFSC relies on global models that lack the resolution to resolve region-specific dynamics and can be inadequate to support the science informed management. The CEFI aims to fill this GAP, and this proposal specifically focuses on the development and scientific use of regional models for the PIFSC (see attached letter). Besides the core HIC model, we will advise and consult with PIFSC and OAR on building an additional high-priority PIFSC regional model. This proposal will importantly train personnel at PIFSC, OAR, and develop new talent with a postdoc, PHD student, and undergraduate student providing three new generations of talent available to NOAA in the future.