Acronym: OCB-018
Program: Ocean Carbon & Biogeochemistry [OCB]
Url: Project Web Site
Start date:
End date:
Geolocation: Southern Ocean
Description:

from www.us-ocb.org

This project will develop a new, high-resolution ocean carbon cycle model of the Southern Ocean designed to improve the realism and quantification of the regional ocean carbon cycle. This project’s objective is to better understand and quantify the role of ocean eddies in the carbon fluxes in the Southern Ocean. The Southern Ocean is the major region of the oceanic uptake of anthropogenic CO2, however it is the region where ocean carbon cycle models show the largest disagreement due to the poor representation of physical circulation at the scale of ocean fronts and eddies. We will improve the realism of the regional carbon fluxes by explicitly resolving the ocean eddy transport. The model employs circulation fields that are determined by the Southern Ocean State Estimation (SOSE) in the Estimate of Climate and Circulation of the Ocean, phase 2 (ECCO-2). Because the circulation field is assimilated with a suite of satellite and in-situ observations, the modeled transport is realistic and computationally efficient, allowing biogeochemical and ecological parameterizations to be implemented at eddy-permitting spatial resolution. This study will include model development and model-data comparison components. We use the model to simulate regional carbon sources and sinks, and critically evaluate the simulated ecosystem and biogeochemical properties using satellite and in situ observations. Simulated chlorophyll, primary production, radiocarbon and surface ocean pCO2 fields will be compared against observational data. We will also compare these properties between the high-resolution and the coarse-resolution models to evaluate the significance of resolving the small-scale circulations. Model-data and model-model comparisons of multiple biogeochemical parameters will elucidate the causes of uncertainties in the regional carbon fluxes and guide our understanding in the controlling mechanisms. The unique feature of this new modeling framework is the application of the high-resolution ocean data assimilation products to the ecosystem and carbon cycle simulation, providing the realistic, high-resolution carbon cycle simulations, supporting the objective of NASA Carbon Cycle Science to improve our understanding and reducing the uncertainties of the regional carbon cycle aided by the observations from space.

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More information about project High-resolution modeling of the Southern Ocean carbon cycle based on ECCO state estimates
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