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Pushing the frontiers of marine ecological modeling: where are we now and how can we move forward?
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Modeled phytoplankton response to the offshore transport of the Pearl River Plume
Monday 7th @ 1430-1450, Conference Room 5
Peng Xiu* , South China Sea Institute of Oceanology
Bingxu Geng, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology
Fei Chai, Second Institute of Oceanography
Presenter Email: pxiu@scsio.ac.cn |
| An anomalously large phytoplankton bloom, which is about 500 km long and 100 km wide, was captured in the northern South China Sea (SCS) by satellite chlorophyll images. A coupled physical-biological model was built for this region and used to investigate the underlying dynamics. We found that the existence of a mesoscale eddy along the continental slope can entrain the plume water of the Pearl River at the eddy edge and transport it to the deep basin of the SCS. The phytoplankton bloom was observed along the path of this offshore transport. Numerical experiments indicated that the advected freshwater from the Pearl River was largely responsible for the phytoplankton bloom especially at the surface. The mesoscale cyclonic eddy transported high nutrients from the continental slope to the deep ocean at the subsurface. The advected freshwater at the eddy edge created a surface salinity front that was accompanied with strong submesoscale upwelling consequently injecting subsurface nutrient to the surface layer and enhancing the phytoplankton growth. |
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