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Preformed and regenerated phosphate in ocean general circulation models: can right total concentrations be wrong?
Citation
Duteil, O and Koeve, W and Oschlies, A and Aumont, O and Bianchi, D and Bopp, L and Galbraith, E and Matear, R and Moore, JK and Sarmiento, JL and Segschneider, J, Preformed and regenerated phosphate in ocean general circulation models: can right total concentrations be wrong?, Biogeosciences, 9, (5) pp. 1797-1807. ISSN 1726-4170 (2012) [Refereed Article]
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Copyright Statement
Copyright 2012 Authors. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
DOI: doi:10.5194/bg-9-1797-2012
Abstract
Phosphate distributions simulated by seven state-of-the-art biogeochemical ocean circulation models are evaluated against observations of global ocean nutrient distributions. The biogeochemical models exhibit different structural complexities, ranging from simple nutrient-restoring to multi-nutrient NPZD type models. We evaluate the simulations using the observed volume distribution of phosphate. The errors in these simulated volume class distributions are significantly larger when preformed phosphate (or regenerated phosphate) rather than total phosphate is considered. Our analysis reveals that models can achieve similarly good fits to observed total phosphate distributions for a~very different partitioning into preformed and regenerated nutrient components. This has implications for the strength and potential climate sensitivity of the simulated biological carbon pump. We suggest complementing the use of total nutrient distributions for assessing model skill by an evaluation of the respective preformed and regenerated nutrient components.
Item Details
| Item Type: | Refereed Article |
|---|---|
| Keywords: | biogeochemistry, biological pump, concentration (composition), error analysis, global ocean numerical model, oceanic general circulation model, phosphate |
| Research Division: | Earth Sciences |
| Research Group: | Oceanography |
| Research Field: | Physical oceanography |
| Objective Division: | Environmental Management |
| Objective Group: | Marine systems and management |
| Objective Field: | Oceanic processes (excl. in the Antarctic and Southern Ocean) |
| UTAS Author: | Matear, R (Dr Richard Matear) |
| ID Code: | 119024 |
| Year Published: | 2012 |
| Web of Science® Times Cited: | 39 |
| Deposited By: | Oceans and Cryosphere |
| Deposited On: | 2017-07-25 |
| Last Modified: | 2017-08-28 |
| Downloads: | 143 View Download Statistics |
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