Upwelling systems are special places in the oceans where nutrient-enriched water is brought into the euphotic zone to fuel phytoplankton blooms that, via marine food-web interactions, create the world’s richest fish resources. This book introduces the reader to the interdisciplinary science of upwelling and provides a comprehensive overview of the world’s most productive marine ecosystems in the context of climate variability, climate change and human exploitation. This material presented is suitable for undergraduate and postgraduate study or just for anyone interested to learn about the creation of life in the oceans and how this is compromised by human activities.

Upwelling is one of the major physical processes driving the biogeochemistry of the ocean system. It dominates primary productivity in the world?s oceans, accounting for 80?90% of new production. However, because of the physical conditions that have to be met to generate upwelling, this production is concentrated in just a few places, e.g., in the coastal waters of major eastern boundary currents off California, Peru, Mauritania, and Namibia, where productivity leads to major fishing grounds. These areas account for about 50% of the world?s fish catch, underlining the importance of upwelling to humankind. Source rocks for oil formed in ancient coastal upwelling environments, making their study useful for improving oil exploration models. Upwelling also occurs in the open ocean, especially along the equator and beneath the westerly winds in the subarctic Pacific and the Southern Ocean, where the ocean?s silica budget is transformed by the deposition of the remains of siliceous phytoplankton. Because phytoplankton, the grass of the sea, can extract CO2 from the atmosphere, changes in the intensity of upwelling and associated biological productivity through time may have influenced climate. This volume uses an interdisciplinary approach to establish how upwelling systems work, how they vary through time, and whether or not they have a significant influence on the global carbon cycle. An understanding of how these largely wind-driven biogeochemical systems work today, and how they responded to past fluctuations in climate, is essential in predicting how they and their associated living resources may change in the future. One conclusion is that these systems exert a major influence on the global cycle of nutrients, a factor that contributes to making the coastal regions major sinks for organic carbon. This book recommends new strategies for observation, sampling, monitoring, experimentation, and modeling as the basis for improving forecasts of the behavior of upwelling systems. It will be of interest to physical oceanographers, marine biologists, fisheries scientists, marine organic and inorganic chemists, marine geologists, petroleum explorers, paleoceanographers, and paleoclimatologists.

Upwelling areas are among the most fertile regions of the ocean. In principle, upwelling is caused by the divergence of the flow in the surface layer of the ocean which arises as a consequence of a particular wind field, the presence of a coastline, or other special conditions. Since deeper oceanic layers are usually enriched wi th nutrients, it is the permanent supply of nutrients which forms the basis for the high producti vi ty of upwelling reg ions. The study of upwelling and its consequences were, for a long time, the task of individual scientists from all disciplines of marine science. Today, it is perhaps the branch of oceanography where interdisciplinary coopera tion has developed best. Becoming aware of the large potential yield of upwelling regions, governments in creased the funds for upwelling research. With research activities developed on a larger scale, interdisciplin ary cooperation became a necessity. On the international level, several symposia documented the rapid development. Three volumes reflect the results of these scientific meetings (Rapp. Proc.-Verb. 159, 1970; Inv. Pesq. 35, 1, 1971; Tethys §.' 1-2, 1974). The present book contains selected papers from the Third Symposium on Upwelling Ecosystems, which was held in Kiel in September 1975. Although the third of a series of meetings, it was the first where the word "ecosystem" stood in the title for a scientific program.

Coastal and marine ecosystems, some severely degraded, other still pristine, control rich resources of inshore environments and coastal seas of Latin America's Pacific and Atlantic margins. Conflicts between the needs of the region's nations and diminishing revenues and environmental quality have induced awareness of coastal ecological problems and motivated financial support for restoration and management. The volume provides a competent review on the structure, processes and function of 22 important Latin American coastal marine ecosystems. Each contribution describes the environmental settings, biotic components and structure of the system, considers trophic processes and energy flow, evaluates the modifying influence of natural and human perturbations, and suggests management needs. Although the focus of the book is on basic ecological research, the results have application for coastal managers.

This book aims to share newly obtained results and information on regional oceanography of the South China Sea by leading experts in fields such as water mass, circulation, mesoscale eddies, near-inertial motion, upwelling, mixing, continental shelf waves, internal waves and fronts. These comprehensive results can provide new insights on global and regional climate change.

This new Encyclopedia of Coastal Science stands as the latest authoritative source in the field of coastal studies, making it the standard reference work for specialists and the interested lay person. Unique in its interdisciplinary approach. This Encyclopedia features contributions by 245 well-known international specialists in their respective fields and is abundantly illustrated with line-drawings and photographs. Not only does this volume offer an extensive number of entries, it also includes various appendices, an illustrated glossary of coastal morphology and extensive bibliographic listings.

The new edition of this widely respected text providescomprehensive and up-to-date coverage of the effects ofbiological–physical interactions in the oceans from themicroscopic to the global scale. considers the influence of physical forcing on biologicalprocesses in a wide range of marine habitats including coastalestuaries, shelf-break fronts, major ocean gyres, coral reefs,coastal upwelling areas, and the equatorial upwelling system investigates recent significant developments in this rapidlyadvancing field includes new research suggesting that long-term variability inthe global atmospheric circulation affects the circulation of oceanbasins, which in turn brings about major changes in fish stocks.This discovery opens up the exciting possibility of being able topredict major changes in global fish stocks written in an accessible, lucid style, this textbook isessential reading for upper-level undergraduates and graduatestudents studying marine ecology and biological oceanography