About

Cristina Schultz is a Foley Family Assistant Professor in the Department of Marine and Environmental Sciences at Northeastern University College of Science. Her research focuses on the influence of climate change and variability on ocean biogeochemistry, utilizing a combination of models and observational data. She studies the feedbacks between ocean ecosystems, sediment, and circulation, and their impact on the carbon and oxygen cycles. Her work aims to understand the mechanisms affecting the carbon cycle in the ocean, which is fundamental for improving the global carbon cycle budgeting and developing strategies to mitigate climate change effects. Dr. Schultz's research employs regional ocean models, Earth System models, in situ data, robotic instruments, remote sensing, and machine learning to advance knowledge in this field.

Research topics

• Environmental science
• Geology
• Oceanography
• Climatology
• Chemistry
• Ecology

Selected publications

• "A High-Resolution Coupled Physical-Biogeochemical Model of the Northeastern US Continental Shelf: MOM6-COBALT-NEUS25v1.0" - preprocessing utilities

  Open MIND · 2026-01-31

  other

  Preprocessing toolkit for MOM6-COBALT-NEUS25 regional ocean model. Generates forcing files from ERA5 (atmosphere), GLORYS (ocean BC), TPXO (tides), GloFAS (rivers), and creates nudging/damping fields.The github repository and appropriate commit are found here For more information, look for README.md in the compressed file.https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18415603: archived version of the model https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17572585: auxilliary datasets

  DOI

• "A High-Resolution Coupled Physical-Biogeochemical Model of the Northeastern US Continental Shelf: MOM6-COBALT-NEUS25v1.0" - preprocessing utilities

  Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · 2026-01-31

  otherOpen access

  Preprocessing toolkit for MOM6-COBALT-NEUS25 regional ocean model. Generates forcing files from ERA5 (atmosphere), GLORYS (ocean BC), TPXO (tides), GloFAS (rivers), and creates nudging/damping fields.The github repository and appropriate commit are found here For more information, look for README.md in the compressed file.https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18415603: archived version of the model https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17572585: auxilliary datasets

  PublisherDOI

• "A High-Resolution Coupled Physical-Biogeochemical Model of the Northeastern US Continental Shelf: MOM6-COBALT-NEUS25v1.0" - archived version of the model repository

  Open MIND · 2026-01-29

  dataset

  The present version of MOM6-COBALT coupled model used in MOM6-COBALT-NEUS25v1.0 is distributed by the GitHub repository managed by the Climate, Ecosystems and Fisheries Initiative (CEFI). This repository uses git commit hash 214d998fba1776261df4af250d17663c272aa218 and corresponding submodules. A companion dataset is also available.

  DOI

• "A High-Resolution Coupled Physical-Biogeochemical Model of the Northeastern US Continental Shelf: MOM6-COBALT-NEUS25v1.0" - archived version of the model repository

  Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · 2026-01-29

  datasetOpen access

  The present version of MOM6-COBALT coupled model used in MOM6-COBALT-NEUS25v1.0 is distributed by the GitHub repository managed by the Climate, Ecosystems and Fisheries Initiative (CEFI). This repository uses git commit hash 214d998fba1776261df4af250d17663c272aa218 and corresponding submodules. A companion dataset is also available.

  PublisherDOI

• Influence of Human Activities and Benthic Processes on Water Quality Dynamics in the Plum Island Estuary

  2025-03-25

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  Understanding the evolving roles of terrestrial inputs and coastal sediments in driving ocean biogeochemical cycles constitutes a key knowledge gap. In the Plum Island Sound, human activities and sediment processes are critical drivers of water quality, shaping the ecological health and resilience of coastal ecosystems. This study aims to investigate the connection between anthropogenic impacts, benthic dynamics, and estuarine and offshore water quality in the Plum Island Estuary. Using climatic, hydrologic, water quality, and sediment data from the Plum Island Ecosystems Long-Term Ecological Research (PIE LTER) and land cover data from the National Land Cover Database (NLCD), we analyzed changes in nutrient concentrations over the past 20 years. Results indicated significant land cover shifts in the Parker and Ipswich River watersheds, with increased urbanization and decreased forested areas. Correlation analysis and random forest modeling identified land cover changes and benthic nutrient fluxes-along with temperature-as the primary drivers of variability in water column nutrient concentrations. Partial Least Squares Path Modeling (PLS-PM) further elucidated both direct and indirect pathways through which human activities and benthic processes influenced water quality, providing quantitative insights into their respective impacts. Urbanization and agricultural expansion were particularly influential in driving nitrogen and phosphorus levels, while precipitation and temperature appear to modulate these effects through changes in runoff and water mixing. Benthic processes played a critical role in nutrient cycling, potentially attenuating nutrient concentrations as river water moved through the estuary toward offshore areas. These results underscore the significant effects of anthropogenic and benthic factors on water quality, highlighting the importance of integrated analyses for informed coastal management. This study provides critical insights into estuarine water quality drivers, forming a scientific foundation for sustainable management and restoration strategies within the Plum Island Estuary.

  PublisherDOI

• Pathways Connecting Climate Changes to the Deep Ocean: Tracing Physical, Biogeochemical, and Ecological Signals From Surface to Deep Sea Workshop Report

  2025-08-19

  reportOpen access

  The deep ocean is a critical yet under-observed component of the Earth’s climate system, acting as a long-term reservoir for heat, carbon, and nutrients. Over recent decades, observations have revealed significant changes in the deep ocean, including warming, freshening, deoxygenation, and acidification. However, regional patterns of change vary substantially, and the mechanisms connecting these changes to surface climate forcing remain poorly understood. To address these gaps, the joint US CLIVAR – OCB – DOOS workshop, titled “Pathways Connecting Climate Changes to the Deep Ocean: Tracing Physical, Biogeochemical, and Ecological Signals from Surface to Deep Sea,” was held in April 2024. The workshop brought together observationalists and modelers from physical, biogeochemical, and ecological disciplines to improve our understanding of the pathways connecting surface climate changes to the deep ocean, as well as linkages across disciplines. The primary objectives were to assess the state of the deep ocean, identify knowledge and observational gaps, and develop recommendations for improved detection and attribution of changes in the deep ocean system.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Tools in Harmony: Integrating Observations and Models for Improved Understanding of a Changing Ocean

  Oceanography · 2025-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Characterizing Subsurface Oxygen Variability in the California Current System (CCS) and Its Links to Water Mass Distribution

  Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans · 2024-02-01 · 4 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract The california current system (CCS) supports a wide array of ecosystem services with hypoxia historically occurring in near‐bottom waters. Limited open ocean data coverage hinders the mechanistic understanding of CCS oxygen variability. By comparing three different models with varying horizontal resolutions, we found that dissolved oxygen (DO) anomalies in the CCS are propagated from shallower coastal areas to the deeper open ocean, where they are advected at a density and velocity consistent with basin‐scale circulation. Since DO decreases have been linked to water mass redistribution in the CCS, we conduct a water mass analysis on two of the models and on biogeochemical Argo floats that sampled multiple seasonal cycles. We found that high variability in biogeochemical variables (DO and nutrients) seen in regions of low variability of temperature and salinity could be linked to water mass mixing, as some of the water masses considered had higher gradients in biogeochemical variables compared to physical variables. Additional DO observations are needed, therefore, to further understand circulation changes in the CCS. We suggest that increased DO sampling north of 35˚N and near the shelf break would benefit model initialization and skill assessment, as well as allow for better assessment of the role of equatorial waters in driving DO in the northern CCS.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Antarctica and the Southern Ocean

  Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society · 2023-09-01 · 21 citations

  articleOpen access

  Many of the major climate themes over Antarctica and the surrounding Southern Ocean in 2022 were a continuation of those seen during 2021. Most notable was the persistence of a deep Amundsen Sea Low (Clem et al. 2022) over the South Pacific, which produced another warm year on the Antarctic Peninsula; it was the second-warmest year on record for all five of the long-term staffed weather stations located on the Peninsula. Coupled with above-normal pressure over much of the southern middle latitudes and generally weak- to below-average pressure elsewhere over Antarctica, the Southern Annular Mode (SAM; Marshall 2003), the difference in pressure anomalies between the southern middle latitudes and Antarctica, remained in a strongly positive state through most of the year (except June), and 2022 saw the third-highest annual-mean SAM index on record (since 1957). This reflects a remarkably persistent positive SAM pattern over the Southern Hemisphere that dates back to October 2020: 24 of the past 27 months have recorded a positive monthly-mean SAM index. Furthermore, the persistence of La Niña through all of 2022 (see section 4b for details), combined with positive SAM conditions, enhanced the deepening and expansion of the Amundsen Sea Low (Fogt et al. 2011), especially from July onward when La Niña strengthened. This contributed to three of the five Peninsula stations recording their warmest July−December period on record. Lastly, there were two exceptional warming events in 2022 due to strong atmospheric rivers: one in early February on the Antarctic Peninsula (not shown; Gorodetskaya et al. 2023) and one in March on the East Antarctic plateau (see Sidebar 6.1 for details). A detailed overview of other noteworthy climate and circulation anomalies across Antarctica in 2022 is provided below.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• 1/8˚ resolution MOM6-COBALT physical and biogeochemical diagnostics for the Gulf of Mexico, monthly means between 2008-2018

  Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · 2023-11-29

  datasetOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  The files in this dataset contain monthly mean chlorophyll (µg/kg), pH, nitrate (mol/kg), dissolved oxygen (mol/kg), potential temperature (˚C) and salinity model outputs for 2008-2018 for the region between 18-31˚N, 98-80˚W. Data was extracted from a global grid run with coupled ocean-ice model configured using the Modular Ocean Model 6 (MOM6, https://github.com/NOAA-GFDL/MOM6 ) and Sea Ice Simulator (SIS2) developed at the NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (Adcroft et al., 2019). The horizontal resolution of the grid is 1/8˚, which is considered eddying and no eddy parameterization was included. Vertically, the model uses 75 hybrid vertical-sigma2 layer coordinates that is remapped onto 35 World Ocean Atlas/Coupled Model Intercomparison Project standard depth levels. The atmospheric forcing was derived from the Japanese 55-year Reanalysis version 1.5 (JRA55 1.5, https://jra.kishou.go.jp/JRA-55/index_en.html#jra-55). The model is driven by river freshwater runoff from a monthly climatology derived from Dai and Trenberth (2002) and Dai et al. (2009), which can be assessed at https://rda.ucar.edu/datasets/ds551.0/. A remapping scheme was used to add freshwater into the appropriate coastal grid cells near the river mouths. The biogeochemical model used was the Carbon, Ocean Biogeochemistry and Lower Trophics (COBALTv2, Stock et al., 2020), which uses 33 tracers for representation of coupled elemental cycles of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, iron, silicon, alkalinity, oxygen and lithogenic matter and associated plankton food web dynamics. More details about the model setup are described in Liu et al. (2019) and Liu et al. (2021). References: Adcroft, A., Anderson, W., Blanton, C., Bushuk, M., Dufour, C.O., Dunne, J.P., Griffies, S.M. et al. (2019). The GFDL Global Ocean and Sea Ice Model OM4.0: Model description and simulation features. Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth System, doi: 10.1029/2019MS001726 Dai, A., T. Qian, K. E. Trenberth, and J. D Milliman, 2009: Changes in continental freshwater discharge from 1948-2004. J. Climate, 22, 2773-2791 Dai, A., and K. E. Trenberth, 2002: Estimates of freshwater discharge from continents: Latitudinal and seasonal variations. J. Hydrometeorol., 3, 660-687 Liu, X., Dunne, J.P., Stock, C. A., Harrison, M.J., Adcroft, A., Resplandy, L. (2019). Simulating Water Residence Time in the Coastal Ocean: A Global Perspective. Geophysical Research Letters, 46, 22, 13910-13919. Doi:10.1029/2019GL085097 Liu, X., Stock, C.A., Dunne, J.P., Lee, M., Shevliakova, E., Malyshev, S., Milly, P.C.D (2021). Simulated Global Coastal Ecosystem Responses to a Half-Century Increase in River Nitrogen Loads. Stock, C. A., Dunne, J. P., Fan, S., Ginoux, P., John, J., Krasting, J. P., et al. (2020). Ocean biogeochemistry in GFDL's Earth System Model 4.1 and its response to increasing atmospheric CO2. Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, 12, e2019MS002043. https://doi.org/10.1029/2019MS002043

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• John P. Dunne

  63 shared

• Xiao Liu

  NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory

  49 shared

• Brendan R. Carter

  NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory

  32 shared

• Jonathan D. Sharp

  26 shared

• Scott C. Doney

  University of Virginia

  20 shared

• Malte F. Stuecker

  University of Hawaii System

  18 shared

• Gregory C. Johnson

  NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory

  13 shared

• Andrea J. Fassbender

  NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory

  12 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry

  Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

  2019

• Ph.D., Earth, Atmosphere and Planetary Sciences

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  2019

• Masters

  National Institute for Space Research

  2012

• B.S, Oceanography

  Universidade de São Paulo

  2009