BIOWAVES · Influence of planetary waves on the biogeochemical system in the global ocean
FP6 — Marie Curie Actions (Human Resources and Mobility)
- Duration
- 2006-12-01 → 2008-11-30
- EU contribution
- €159,046
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- EIF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Final Activity Report Summary - BioWaves (Influence of planetary waves on the biogeochemical system in the global ocean)
The BIOWAVES project aimed to quantitatively assess the influence of planetary waves on the biogeochemical system in the global ocean, by using a realistically coupled physical and biogeochemical model. Planetary waves represent a key process to maintain the ocean circulation and propagate potential energy in oceans. These waves have a distinct signature in chlorophyll concentrations, suggesting a potential impact of these waves on marine ecosystems. To investigate these coupled physical and biogeochemical basin-scale interactions, the present study was based on a general circulation model coupled with a simple biogeochemical model that was divided in five compartments, namely dissolved inorganic nitrogen, phytoplankton, zooplankton, detritus and dissolved organic nitrogen. Two configurations, based on two physical models, i.e. OPA8 and its improved version NEMO, were implemented. The first one was applied for case studies over twenty zonal transects in the north Atlantic. This approach showed that planetary waves were able to generate both positive and negative local variations in primary production, suggesting a net weak effect at basin scale, as described in the publication by Charria et al., in Ocean Science in 2008. With the second configuration a basin-scale experiment was setup over the entire north Atlantic to investigate the influence of the waves on primary and exported production. The biogeochemical model was run using physical fields in which the westward propagating features were filtered out. This experiment showed a general decrease of the primary production over the basin, with larger decrease north of 40° N. This study was the first basin-scale estimation of the influence of westward propagating features on the biological productions. Its results contributed to the estimation of the impacts of physical oceanic processes on biological activity and, by extension, on the marine biological pump. Therefore this study contributed towards a better knowledge of one of the most pressing problems in contemporary science, i.e. the quantification of the carbon cycle.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
Planetary waves play an important role in the dynamics of the oceans. With the development of satellite measurements, it finally became possible to observe planetary waves in Sea Level Anomalies from radar altimeters (e.g. Chelton and Schlax, 1996; Cipolli ni et al., 1997) as well as in Sea Surface Temperature from infrared sensors (e.g. Hill et al., 2000). Recently, several authors have studied westward propagating features associated with planetary waves in ocean colour data (chlorophyll-a concentration) (e.g. Machu et al., 1999; Cipollini et al., 2001; Uz et al., 2001; Charria et al., 2006). The observations of such signals prompt the question of how planetary waves influence primary, new and exported productions. Several physical/biological processes, which might be involved, have been suggested.They are investigated using theoretical models and compared to the remotely sensed observations in a recent paper by Killworth et al. (2004). In this paper, it is pointed out the importance of the meridional advection of chlorophyll by geostrophic currents associated with planetary waves at global scale with a strong local contribution of vertical processes as shown in a following paper by Charria et al. (2006) in the North Atlantic. The aim of the present project is precisely to assess quantitatively the role of planetary waves on the biogeochemical system in different regions of the global ocean, by using remotely sensed data and realistic coupled physical/biogeochemical models.The strategy of the project is to look at the differences in wave characteristics amongst different long datasets (from 1992 onwards), which will allow investigating on the underlying processes. It will then be tested and quantified with physical-biogeochemical modelling. At the time of writing, a quantitative measurement of the influence of planetary waves on the biogeochemical system in many oceanic regions is badly missing in order to better quantify and understand the global carbon cycle.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- NATURAL ENVIRONMENT RESEARCH COUNCIL · SWINDONCoordinatorUnited Kingdom
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union