Themes in Modelling Ocean Biogeochemical Processes

Abstract

This book is about how to write mechanistic models of marine ecology that describe and predict how concentrations and fluxes of biologically important elements (especially carbon) vary in space and time, throughout the ocean over many years, in response to physical forcing. Such models are needed because of widespread interest in the global carbon cycle and the ocean’s place in it. The chances of achieving them are improving because computers are getting better, because satellite remote sensing offers much more information, and because many scientists worldwide are cooperating, through the Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (JGOFS), to collect relevant data and understand relevant processes. As different research groups undertake modelling projects, comparisons between them can become as much of an issue as comparisons with observations. It will help the whole modelling community if common approaches are used where possible, and if divergent approaches arise from clearly understood reasons instead of by accident. In the first week of May 1992, a NATO Advanced Research Workshop (with additional funding from the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research) “Towards a Model of Ocean Biogeochemical Processes” was held at the Chateau de Bonas in Gascony, France. It brought together 45 scientists from 16 countries to discuss the issues and to explore the extent to which a common approach is possible, emphasizing the model-building process rather than the results of particular models. This book is the record of invited lectures and working group discussions of that meeting.