The Role of Eddies in Basin Scale Biogeochemical Budgets of the North Atlantic

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9725974 McGillicuddy Coupled physical-biogeochemical models provide a useful framework for testing our ideas about the underlying physical, biological and chemical controls on elemental cycling in the ocean. Up to now, efforts to do so on basin scales have produced mixed results. In this project, the investigators will construct the first basin scale eddy-resolving biogeochemical simulations of the North Atlantic to examine the impact of mesoscale processes on large scale elemental budgets. A suite of experiments is planned what are based on 1' (coarse), 1/3 (eddy-permitting) and 1/6' (eddy- resolving) CME simulations. The coarse resolution runs will be used to benchmark the Sarmiento and Fasham results, and serve as a control run for the higher resolution calculations. Although the eddy-permitting case will most likely not be entirely sufficient for a comprehensive study of mesoscale processes, it does represent a meaningful intermediated step that will provide useful information without incurring the substantial computational cost of the 1/6' runs. Understanding gained from these experiments will be used to guide the development of parameterizations for mesoscale biogeochemical processes to permit their inclusion in larger scale (global) models.