GENUS Model Cascade

GENUS will employ a hierarchy of numerical models from regional climate, ocean circulation, ecosystems, and energy flows to model past states and possible future states of the shelf ecosystem.

Driven by available climate re-analysis and satellite data, and synthetic forcing by a regional climate model (REMO) downscaled from a global simulation (the Millennium-simulation of MPI for Meteorology, Hamburg), a circulation model (MOM4) coupled to an ecosystem model (ERGOM, simulating nutrients, phytoplankton, zooplankton and detritus) will be calibrated and used to simulate ecosystem structures and material flows at historical extremes in climate forcing (retrospective analysis). The fluxes of radiatively active gases, and transports of nutrient elements and carbon between the coastal ocean, the adjacent mesopelagic ocean, the atmosphere, and sediments will be assessed and scaled to given atmospheric and oceanic circulation state.[more]