Abstract: a framework for testing the ability of regional MOM6 to reproduce observed fisheries variability with diagnostics for model skill attribution mapp advancing an integrated NOAA capability for…

Abstract: a framework for testing the ability of regional MOM6 to reproduce observed fisheries variability with diagnostics for model skill attribution mapp advancing an integrated NOAA capability for climate predictions and projections in support of NOAA's climate ecosystems fisheries initiative statement of the problem: the climate and ecosystem fisheries initiative (cefi) needs seasonal to decadal forecasts of physical and biogeochemical conditions relevant to living marine resources. Seasonal to decadal forecasts would be the correct temporal scales for decisionmaking, but they also need to be at the correct spatial scales of influence to oceanographic processes, population structure, and fisheries management. Rationale: coupled climate-ocean-biogeochemistry global earth system models have established skill in predicting physical and biological variables important to fish and fisheries on seasonal to decadal time scales of significance to management. In contrast, regional oceanbiogeochemistry models of much higher spatial resolution have been used to simulate single species of living marine resources, capturing relationships between biophysical variables and catch, distribution, and recruitment. Regional implementations of MOM6 (regional-MOM6) combine the strengths of these two approaches and aim to be a unified framework for climateocean-ecosystem modeling for cefi across OAR and nmfs science centers. However, there is the need to demonstrate that the regional-MOM6 configurations of physics and biogeochemistry reproduce observed variability of fisheries metrics at the spatiotemporal scales relevant to management. Proposed work: the proposed work will address priority area a: advance methodologies for the prediction of large marine ecosystems. The overarching task is to force two marine ecosystem models, boats and feisty, with hindcasts of regional-MOM6 for the northeast pacific (NEP) and northwest atlantic (NWA) and compare them against fisheries-dependent and fisheries-independent observations of fish catch and biomass. Analysis of regional-MOM6 will move beyond point-based evaluation of the modeled biophysical variables of significance to fisheries by examining how well they represent critical fisheries-oriented processes and gradients as illustrated by fish simulations. Comparisons of simulated fish biomass with field observations will leverage the wealth of fisheries-independent data collected by nmfs, including newly processed fisheries acoustic observations of the relative distributions of zooplankton and forage fishes in the pelagic zone, and syntheses of surface and bottom trawls. Sensitivity tests will be performed to identify key modeled physical and biogeochemical drivers of fisheries variability. Broader impacts and competition relevance: our research will improve the modeling and understanding of climate-related biophysical mechanisms that drive fisheries variability in US marine ecosystems. Specifically, IT will develop and deliver new diagnostics that will lay the foundation for process-level evaluation and benchmarking of MOM6-NWA and the MOM6- NEP. The addition of fish simulations and direct comparisons against fish and fisheries data will provide a powerful test for whether this regional modeling framework is fit-to-task for making seasonal-to-decadal predictions to inform management under cefi. Additionally, the new compilations of fisheries-independent observations of pelagic fishes and zooplankton will provide a validation dataset relevant to a wealth of cefi and NOAA models under development.