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Keynote Speeches
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Modeling Continental Shelf Nutrient and Carbon Budgets: Approaches and Challenges
Monday 7th @ 1610-1650, Conference Hall
Eileen E. Hofmann* , Center for Coastal Physical Oceanography
Old Dominion University
The USECoS Team,
Presenter Email: hofmann@ccpo.odu.edu |
| Understanding and projecting the fate and transport of carbon and nutrients for continental shelf systems requires integrated modeling frameworks that encompass the land-estuary-shelf continuum, resolve seasonal and annual variability in fluxes, and include complex biogeochemical interactions that modify nutrient and carbon cycling. Such a modeling framework has been implemented for the Middle Atlantic Bight region of the U.S. east coast. Watershed inputs of nutrients and carbon are provided by the Dynamic Land Ecosystem Model and estuarine transformations (Chesapeake Bay) are simulated by a high-resolution circulation-biogeochemical model. Fluxes from the estuary provide inputs to a coupled circulation-biogeochemical model implemented for the MAB shelf. Nutrient budgets generated from multi-year simulations provide estimates of the relative importance of internal transformation processes in the estuary and export to the coastal ocean. Similar budgets for the MAB continental shelf provide estimates of net community production and fluxes of inorganic and organic nitrogen due to coastal currents, rivers, and estuaries. Passive tracer simulations provide insights into transport pathways that connect the estuary, inner shelf, and outer shelf and identify export pathways from the MAB to the open ocean and other shelf regions. The MAB simulations improve understanding of the coupling at the land-water interface and shelf-wide transport patterns that advance the ability to predict the effects of localized human impacts and broader-scale climate-related impacts on the U.S. east coast continental shelf system. The integrated modeling framework implemented for the MAB also provides a basis for comparing with other continental shelf systems, highlighting approaches for projecting the effects of climate change on nutrient and carbon cycling, and identifying the challenges associated with including socio-economic effects of changes in nutrient and carbon cycling in continental shelf systems. |
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