Collaborative Research Type 2 - MOBY: Modeling Ocean Variability and Biogeochemical Cycles

智力优势：该项目（MOBY）的重点是气候系统海洋部分在物理和地球化学方面的十年期可预测性。它将促进对海洋中对全球气候作出反应和反馈的物理、化学和生物耦合过程的了解。中尺度上的物理和地球化学活动，即海洋中大部分动能所在的尺度，被认为在控制海洋在年际至十年时间尺度上将热量和碳固存到其内部的能力方面发挥着重要作用。因此，中尺度及其与地球化学循环的相互作用必须得到解决，或理解和参数化，我们才能有信心在十年气候预测。然而，目前这一代海洋气候模型并不能解决中尺度问题，即使它们能代表海洋地球化学，也只包括了少数“隔间”。为了解决这一挑战，马萨诸塞州理工学院、伍兹霍尔海洋研究所和国家大气研究中心的科学家们提出了一种多尺度建模方法，在这种方法中，区域性的、高分辨率的模型嵌入到全球性的、高分辨率的模型中。大尺度海洋模型由此产生的数值“变焦镜头”将部署在气候变化的关键区域，试图解决海洋生态系统所经历的中尺度和亚中尺度环境，但嵌入在一个全球模型。然后，地球化学循环的模式将被叠加，以研究生态系统与完全分辨的中尺度湍流的相互作用。将采用“自组装”生态系统模型，这些模型有能力代表生态系统对不断变化的环境和变异模式的反应。最后，将研究对热/碳吸收和生态系统群落结构的综合影响。这些计算的全球范围将使人们能够对中尺度物理、化学和生物相互作用的纠正效应作出合理的推论，并为在用于预测十年变率和气候变化的较粗分辨率耦合气候模式中将这些效应参数化的战略提供信息。赤道太平洋、南大洋和亚热带西北大西洋。相关的变率模式分别是厄尔尼诺/南方涛动、南方环形模式和北大西洋涛动。 更广泛的影响：拟议的研究是我们理解和模拟海洋及其生命，地球历史上海洋生命进化，全球碳和营养物质循环，海洋自然资源保护和开发，渔业管理，地球工程的关键。（以便为关于试图减轻人为影响的利弊的决定提供信息）和海洋酸化等许多重大挑战。这些合作努力将为参与研究的研究生和本科生提供培训和学习机会。现任博士。麻省理工学院/WHOI联合项目的一名学生将得到该项目的支持，沿着还有两名学生。研究人员还将试图通过WHOI暑期学生奖学金/NSF本科生研究经验计划吸引本科生参与该项目。最后，除了项目参与者（学生、博士后和来自三个合作机构的科学家）的年度小组会议外，将在项目的第二年和第四年举行为期两天的“社区讲习班”，向从事MOBY项目所涵盖的广泛科学主题的更广泛的科学家群体提供信息，并听取他们的信息。

Intellectual Merit: This project (MOBY) focuses on decadal predictability of the ocean component of the climate system, both in its physical and biogeochemical aspects. It will advance understanding of the coupled physical, chemical and biological processes in the ocean that respond to, and feedback on, the global climate. Physical and biogeochemical activity on the mesoscale, the scale at which most of the kinetic energy in the ocean resides, is thought to play a major role in controlling the ability of the ocean to sequester heat and carbon in to its interior on interannual to decadal timescales. The mesoscale and its interaction with biogeochemical cycles must therefore be either resolved, or understood and parameterized, before we can have confidence in decadal climate predictions. The current generation of ocean climate models, however, do not resolve the mesoscale, and, if they represent biogeochemistry at all, only a few 'compartments' are included.To address this challenge, scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research, propose a multi-scale modeling approach in which regional, high-resolution models are embedded in global, coarser-scale ocean models. The resulting numerical 'zoom lenses' will be deployed in key regions of climate variability in an attempt to resolve the mesoscale and submesoscale environment experienced by ocean ecosystems, but embedded in a global model. Then, models of biogeochemical cycles will be overlain to study the interaction of ecosystems with fully-resolved mesoscale turbulence. 'Self-assembling' ecosystem models will be employed that have the capacity to represent the response of the ecosystem to the changing environment and modes of variability. Finally, the integrated effects on heat/carbon uptake, and ecosystem community structure will be studied. The global context of these calculations will allow plausible inferences to be made about the rectified effects of mesoscale physical, chemical and biological interactions and inform strategies to parameterize them in the coarser-resolution coupled climate models used in projections of decadal variability and climate change.These overlapping activities will be focused on three regions of strong natural variability where there is vigorous small-scale variability: the equatorial Pacific, the Southern Ocean and the subtropical northwest Atlantic. The associated modes of variability are ENSO, the Southern Annular Mode (SAM), and North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), respectively. Broader Impacts: The proposed research is key to our understanding and modeling the ocean and life within it, the evolution of life within the ocean over earth history, the global cycle of carbon and nutrients, the conservation and exploitation of the ocean's natural resources, management of fisheries, geoengineering (to inform decisions about the pros and cons of attempting to ameliorate anthropogenic impacts) and ocean acidification, among many other grand challenges. These collaborative efforts will provide training and learning opportunities to the graduate and undergraduate students participating in the research. A current Ph.D. student in the MIT/WHOI Joint Program will be supported by this project, along with two further students. The investigators will also attempt to entrain undergraduates into the project through the WHOI Summer Student Fellowship/NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates program. Finally, in addition to yearly group meetings of the project participants (students, post-docs and scientists from the three collaborating institutions), two-day 'community workshops' in years 2 and 4 of the project will be held to inform, and be informed by a wider group of scientists working on the broad science themes embraced by the MOBY project.