Regional impact of climate change on the atmospheric forcing over the Chile-Peru upwelling system

Did you know that about 20% of the world's fish catch comes from a near-coastal region off Peru-Chile—an area accounting for only 1% of the ocean’s surface? This wealth of fish resources is due to upwelling of cold, nutrient-rich waters induced by dominant southerly wind. Imagine how important it is to assess the impact of global warming on coastal upwelling! Yet, the coarse-resolution climate models used to obtain future climate projections do not allow it to be accurately represented. Dr. Goubanova seeks to fill this gap. Taking advantage of satellite data, she developed a statistical method for estimating regional upwelling-favorable wind from global climate scenarios. This approach will provide ocean modelers with realistic high-resolution atmospheric forcing and might be of use to regional risk assessors and fishery management.
My research focuses on the oceanic region off Peru-Chile that is characterised by an upwelling of cold, deep, nutrient reach waters which promote a high-productive ecosystem. My current post-doc project aims to understand the impact of tropical variability of the upwelling-favourable winds taking into account recent changes in the Tropical Pacific interannual variability, in particular related to the increased occurrence of a new type of El Niño phenomenon, named Modoki El Niño. Of particular interest are regional processes associated with air-sea interaction during El Niño events.