TY - JOUR
T1 - Interannual variability of carbon fluxes at the North Atlantic Station ESTOC
AU - Pätsch, J.
AU - Kühn, W.
AU - Radach, G.
AU - Santana Casiano, J. M.
AU - Gonzalez Davila, M.
AU - Neuer, Susanne
AU - Freudenthal, T.
AU - Llinas, O.
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank E. Maier-Reimer, D. Wulf-Gladrow and K. Six for their helpful comments. We are very much obliged to A. Oschlies, H. Burchard and E. Lewis. The comments and thorough checking of the text by the reviewers improved the manuscript. This research was funded by the German BMBF under contract number 03F0160C/9.
PY - 2001
Y1 - 2001
N2 - The impact of sea surface temperature and wind stress on primary production, export production, and CO2 air-sea exchange at the ESTOC station (29°N, 15.5°W) north of the Canary Islands is the focus of our investigations. A one-dimensional carbon and nitrogen cycling model was applied for the 10-year period 1987-1996. The simulation results compare well with upper layer observations for 1994-1996. Our simulated deep-water particle fluxes mostly overestimate the originally observed values for 1992-1996. On the other hand, the simulated fluxes underestimate the 230Th corrected particle fluxes (Scholten et al., Deep Sea Res. 48 (2001) 1413). Identifying the original observations as lower and the corrected values as upper estimate for the particle flux the simulation results falls in the range between these estimates. The large simulated interannual variability of carbon fluxes is in apparent contrast to the low interannual variability of the meteorological forcing typical for this subtropical regime. The key to this phenomenon lies in the sensitivity of this ecosystem to nutrient supply: depending on the meteorological situation, in different years the mixed-layer depth can or cannot reach the nitracline.
AB - The impact of sea surface temperature and wind stress on primary production, export production, and CO2 air-sea exchange at the ESTOC station (29°N, 15.5°W) north of the Canary Islands is the focus of our investigations. A one-dimensional carbon and nitrogen cycling model was applied for the 10-year period 1987-1996. The simulation results compare well with upper layer observations for 1994-1996. Our simulated deep-water particle fluxes mostly overestimate the originally observed values for 1992-1996. On the other hand, the simulated fluxes underestimate the 230Th corrected particle fluxes (Scholten et al., Deep Sea Res. 48 (2001) 1413). Identifying the original observations as lower and the corrected values as upper estimate for the particle flux the simulation results falls in the range between these estimates. The large simulated interannual variability of carbon fluxes is in apparent contrast to the low interannual variability of the meteorological forcing typical for this subtropical regime. The key to this phenomenon lies in the sensitivity of this ecosystem to nutrient supply: depending on the meteorological situation, in different years the mixed-layer depth can or cannot reach the nitracline.
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U2 - 10.1016/S0967-0645(01)00103-5
DO - 10.1016/S0967-0645(01)00103-5
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0036139734
SN - 0967-0645
VL - 49
SP - 253
EP - 288
JO - Deep-Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography
JF - Deep-Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography
IS - 1-3
ER -