PARADIGM: The Partnership for Advancing Interdisciplinary Global Modeling - Year 3 Annual Report

The long-term goals of this project are: To develop an efficient, community-based coupled biogeochemical-physical modeling framework that will enable the addition of new oceanographic processes in a straightforward and transparent manner, allowing new model structures to be developed and explored as our understanding of ocean ecology and biogeochemistry improves. To develop such a modeling framework within the context of our initial, specific overarching scientific focus: an inter-comparison study between the subtropical-subpolar gyre systems of the North Pacific and North Atlantic basins, including an explicit coastal component, with particular emphasis on understanding: new paradigms for physical and chemical control of plankton community structure and function; the consequences for biogeochemical cycling; the effects of sub-mesoscale and mesoscale forcing, and the dynamics of long-term, climate driven ecosystem regime shifts. To meet the challenge of merging observations and models through: advanced data assimilation techniques; the development of interdisciplinary data products for incorporation into models, and; the application of new statistical and complex dynamical systems analysis techniques. The merging of observations and models supports a rigorous model validation program that is central to PARADIGM. Project objectives are to improve our understanding of the mean state, seasonal cycle, and natural interannual to decadal variability of global and basin-scale biogeographical patterns. Why do different ecosystems reside where they do? What combination of forcing and biological responses drives the observed long-term variability and apparent ecosystem regime shifts? The intrinsic scales of ocean ecology are set by the growth and removal of phytoplankton, with time-constants of one to a few days.

A National Oceanographic Partnership Program Award. The original document contains color images. All DTIC reproductions will be in black and white.