Conclusion
We have summarized many aspects of our current understanding of how climate change due to increasing greenhouse gases will affect oceanic biology and how the physical-biological feedbacks may influence the evolving physical climate system. The primary effects of ocean biology on physical climate were its influence on the carbon cycle, the influence of oceanic phytoplankton on upper-ocean absorption, and the influence of DMS production by phytoplankton on atmospheric aerosols. The primary influences of the physical climate on the ocean biology were the influence of aoelian dust deposition and the multitude of ways that community structure can be altered. Our focus was on the tropical and midlatitude Pacific Ocean, although results from other ocean basins were also noted.
The greatest need for building on our current understanding of these processes is long-term physical and biological observations in the ocean-atmosphere system. Modeling efforts must be constrained and instigated by these observational programs, and the observational strategies must be motivated by the model results as well. Since we still lack an adequate depiction of present-day oceanic community structures, it is very difficult to determine how they will change over time and how the climate feedbacks will be affected. Physical-biological modeling efforts should be directed to those few oceanic regions where we currently have a fair understanding of what species are present and how they vary naturally over time, such as the southern California Current System (CalCOFI region). We can then assess our skills at and prediction based on data gathered in the coming months or years. This will provide a fair assessment of our skills of predicting the responses of oceanic biology and the physical climate feedbacks on the centennial timescale of global warming.
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