Modelling water column processes in the North Sea

Abstract

In the North Sea advective transports are not negligible. Nevertheless, physical properties like sea surface temperature (sst) can be hindcasted with sufficient precision by vertical process water column models. Annual cycles of sst in the southern, central, and northern North Sea can be simulated using physical upper layer models with relatively small rms errors. For the Fladenground Experiment (FLEX’76) in the northern North Sea the rms error is less 0.3 °C for the 2 months of the experiment. This justifies the initial use, at least, of vertical process water column models in simulations for investigating transfer processes in the planktonic ecosystem. Experiments have shown that the simulated entrainment velocities at the bottom of the mixed layer during summer are critically dependent on the resolution of the forcing variables. The effects of this resolution on the annual phytoplankton dynamics will be discussed.