Co-Convenors: Jürgen Alheit (ICES/Germany), Emanuele Di Lorenzo (PICES/USA), Michael Foreman (PICES/ Canada), Shoshiro Minobe (PICES/Japan), Hiroaki Saito (PICES/Japan) and Toshio Suga (CLIVAR/Japan)

Invited Speakers:
Kenneth Drinkwater (Institute of Marine Research, Norway)
Young-Oh Kwon (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, USA)
Nathan Mantua (University of Washington, USA)
Yoshi N. Sasaki (Hokkaido University, Japan)
Akinori Takasuka (National Research Institute of Fisheries Science, FRA, Japan)

Physical climate variability and change exert substantial impacts on marine ecosystems, particularly on longer timescales because of the longer ocean memory compared with the atmosphere, and the cumulative effects on marine ecosystems. On a centennial scale, climate changes due to anthropogenic forcings may dominate over natural variability, but variations on decadal or shorter timescales may be mainly due to natural climate variability. Furthermore, natural climate variability can be modified via climate changes. Therefore, a correct understanding of the mechanisms underlying climate variability and change should be the basis for understanding and predicting future conditions of the North Pacific and North Atlantic. For the North Pacific there is no widely accepted consensus on the mechanisms governing decadal-to-multidecadal climate variability, and this mainly reflects the uncertainty of how, or even whether, the mid-latitude ocean influences the atmosphere. Some linkages between processes, such as oceanic memory due to Rossby wave propagation, are generally accepted, and predictability associated with these processes may also be important for understanding marine ecosystem impacts. It is also unclear if teleconnection dynamics between the North Pacific, North Atlantic and the Arctic exert an important control on the ocean’s decadal climate state. This session brings together researchers of marine ecosystems, physical oceanography and climate to share ideas about what physical parameters and processes are important in understanding and predicting the response of specific marine ecosystems to climate forcing. Through collaboration among PICES, CLIVAR and ICES, this session invites contributions exploring important developments in the research field of the North Pacific climate variability and change, including physical environmental variations and their predictability, teleconnection dynamics between oceanic basins, such as the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, and linkages between physical conditions and marine ecosystems.