  Understanding how climate change will affect oceanic fluid transport is
crucial for environmental applications and human activities. However, a
synoptic characterization of the influence of climate change on mesoscale
stirring and transport in the surface ocean is missing. To bridge this gap, we
exploit a high-resolution, fully-coupled climate model of the Mediterranean
basin using a Network Theory approach. We project significant increases of
horizontal stirring and kinetic energies in the next century, likely due to
increments of available potential energy. The future evolution of basin-scale
transport patterns hint at a rearrangement of the main hydrodynamic provinces,
defined as regions of the surface ocean that are well-mixed internally but with
minimal cross-flow across their boundaries. This results in increased
heterogeneity of province sizes and stronger mixing in their interiors. Our
approach can be readily applied to other oceanic regions, providing information
for the present and future marine spatial planning.
