Simulating the spring phytoplankton bloom in the Humber Plume (UK) with a variable phytoplankton carbon: chlorophyll-a model

Abstract

Abstract This note briefly describes the incorporation of algorithms describing the response of phytoplankton growth rate and carbon to chlorophyll-a ratio to irradiance and temperature into the phytoplankton sub-models of the European Regional Seas Ecosystem Model (ERSEM). This new model is validated against a time series of chlorophyll-a measured in during the spring bloom in the Humber plume in 1996 and produces simulations of comparable quality to the original ERSEM model. The advantage of a model that produces variable carbon: chlorophyll-a (C: Chl-a) ratios as a consequence of physiological dynamics is that it allows a more realistic interpretation of chlorophyll-a data in terms of phytoplankton carbon when both validating and assimilating data into ecosystem models than for models with fixed C: Chl-a ratios. The implications of this approach for pre-operational forecast modelling are discussed.