Multi-year simulations of future socio-economic and climate scenarios in the Mediterranean Sea

The Modelling Framework for European regional seas developed at unit D02 of the JRC is applied to explore plausible consequences for the Mediterranean Sea marine ecosystems of a set of climate and socio-economic scenarios for the 2030 horizon. The main objective of this work is to test the capability of the Modelling Framework to perform scenario forecasts. Therefore an ensemble of two different regional climate models under two selected emissions scenarios are combined with two socio-economic pathways to force a single hydrodynamic-biogeochemical ocean model. Socio-economic alternatives are reflected in the modelling system through changes in the river water quality (nutrient levels) that are flowing into the ocean basin. A step-wise approach allows to compare the different scenarios (combination of climate and socio-economic changes) and to quantify the induced changes in the marine ecosystem status. The model performance and the achieved results are strongly influenced by the reliability of the applied hydro-meteorological forcings. The applicability of the Modelling Framework to this type of scenario investigations could be successfully demonstrated.