Zooplankton formulations in marine biogeochemical models

General Information

ZOOMBI aims to improve the zooplankton closure formulation in operationally used marine ecosystem models and thus pave the way for coupling higher and lower trophic levels for operational services. This will be facilitated by implementing both fish and macrobenthos as new functional groups in the TOPAZ-ECOSMO model system, the model currently used for operational services in the Arctic Ocean within the COPERNICUS Marine Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS). Not only will this allow a spatially and temporally dynamical description of zooplankton predation, but also a better, biologically founded representation of the benthic-pelagic coupling. This coupling will be further improved by additionally implementing a new sinking scheme for particulate organic carbon. The combination of these processes will improve simulating the spatial and temporal distribution of zooplankton in addition to the vertical nutrient distribution and marine carbon export. Since the new model system will include descriptions for higher trophic level and benthic production this
is a first step towards operational services for marine fish and fisheries. To evaluate the model’s potential for this purpose and statistically test the impact of data assimilation for the models performance we propose to conduct Observing System Simulation Experiments (OSSEs) within the frame of ZOOMBI.

EU-Programme Acronym and Subprogramme Area	COPERNICUS Ocean (CMEMS)
Project Type	COPERNICUS Tender
Contract Number	66-SE-CMEMS-CALL2-RD06
Co-ordinator	Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht (DE)

Funding for the Project (€)	Funding for HZG (€)
200,000	110,000

Contact Person at HZG

Dr. Ute Daewel, Institute of Coastal Research, KST, Phone: +49 4152 87 2821 E-mail contact

Participants

Stiftelsen Nansen Senter for Fjernmaaling (NO)

Last Update: 17. April 2018