Seasonal pCO₂ variations in fishing refuge zones in the coast of Mexico, based on satellite data

Abstract

Oceans are an important and complex ecosystem; they act as a sink of atmospheric CO₂ and provide fishing resources. Climate change and overfishing are changing the oceans dynamics, that’s why different conservation tools have been developed. In Mexico there are Fishing Refuge Zones to protect and conservate certain areas to try and repopulate and enhance the state of the areas. This research aims to understand the seasonal and special distribution of pCO₂ values in fishing refuge zones, 12 in the Coast of Quintana Roo, and 3 in the Coast of San Pedro Nolasco Island, Sonora for 2019 to 2021. PCO₂ can be an indicator of oceans health and acidification, as well it is necessary variable to calculate the CO₂ uptake in the ocean. The pCO₂ values are estimated based on nonlinear equation where there’s a quadratic relation for pCO₂ as function of Sea Surface Temperature (SST), Chlorophyll -a (Chl-a), Latitude and Longitude. The variables SST and Chl-a are obtained form satellite data, from Copernicus Climate Change Service, and the pCO₂ values to train and validate the model are form the Surface Ocean CO₂ Atlas (SOCAT). After the estimation of pCO₂, there’s an analysis to research for a relationship between pCO₂ seasonal values and the fish abundance, which is acquired from underwater census data, provided by COBI A.C.