An observational assessment of the influence of mesoscale and submesoscale heterogeneity on ocean biogeochemical reactions
Martin, Adrian ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1202-8612; Levy, Marina; van Gennip, Simon; Pardo, Silvia; Srokosz, Meric ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7347-7411; Allen, John; Painter, Stuart C.; Pidcock, Roz. 2015 An observational assessment of the influence of mesoscale and submesoscale heterogeneity on ocean biogeochemical reactions. Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 29 (9). 1421-1438. 10.1002/2015GB005129
Before downloading, please read NORA policies.Preview |
Text (Open Access paper)
Martin_et_al-2015-Global_Biogeochemical_Cycles.pdf - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. Download (3MB) | Preview |
Preview |
Text
Accepted for publication in Global Biogeochemical Cycles. © 2015 American Geophysical Union. Further reproduction or electronic distribution is not permitted. gbc20322.pdf - Accepted Version Download (6MB) | Preview |
Abstract/Summary
Numerous observations demonstrate that considerable spatial variability exists in components of the marine planktonic ecosystem at the mesoscale and submesoscale (100 km -1 km). The causes and consequences of physical processes at these scales (‘eddy advection’) influencing biogeochemistry have received much attention. Less studied, the non-linear nature of most ecological and biogeochemical interactions means that such spatial variability has consequences for regional estimates of processes including primary production and grazing, independent of the physical processes. This effect has been termed ‘eddy reactions’. Models remain our most powerful tools for extrapolating hypotheses for biogeochemistry to global scales and to permit future projections. The spatial resolution of most climate and global biogeochemical models means that processes at the mesoscale and submesoscale are poorly resolved. Modelling work has previously suggested that the neglected ‘eddy reactions’ may be almost as large as the mean field estimates in some cases. This study seeks to quantify the relative size of eddy and mean reactions observationally, using in situ and satellite data. For primary production, grazing and zooplankton mortality the eddy reactions are between 7% and 15% of the mean reactions. These should be regarded as preliminary estimates to encourage further observational estimates, and not taken as a justification for ignoring eddy reactions. Compared to modelling estimates, there are inconsistencies in the relative magnitude of eddy reactions and in correlations which are a major control on their magnitude. One possibility is that models exhibit much stronger spatial correlations than are found in reality, effectively amplifying the magnitude of eddy reactions.
Item Type: | Publication - Article |
---|---|
Digital Object Identifier (DOI): | 10.1002/2015GB005129 |
ISSN: | 0886-6236 |
Additional Keywords: | mesoscale; submesoscale; biogeochemistry; eddy reaction; observations; modelling |
NORA Subject Terms: | Marine Sciences |
Date made live: | 14 Aug 2015 12:56 +0 (UTC) |
URI: | https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/511535 |
Actions (login required)
View Item |
Document Downloads
Downloads for past 30 days
Downloads per month over past year