Coastal Biogeochemistry

Enlarged view: Global study area
Eastern boundary upwelling systems, the Amazon plume system and Moorea Island.

The Coastal Biogeochemistry group aims to better understand the role of the coastal ocean in the global biogeochemical cycles (i.e., carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus) over the last century, at present, and in the near future.

Our current research focuses on biogeochemical dynamics and coastal ocean productivity in regions including eastern boundary upwelling systems, river-dominated marginal systems and coral reef systems of the Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean.

The main regions of interest to our group are the Amazon plume system, Moorea Island, California, Canary and Humboldt Current Systems. Some of the questions we want to address regard:

  • Coastal ocean/open ocean exchange of carbon and nutrients
  • Interaction of hydrodynamics and biogeochemistry in coastal regions
  • Coastal productivity
  • Marine nitrogen fixation
  • Mesoscale dynamics
  • Benthic fluxes of carbon and nutrients
  • Interannual variability
  • Climate change

We use the Regional Oceanic Modeling System (ROMS) coupled to biogeochemical-​ecosystem models (NPZD and BEC) to investigate the cycling of carbon and nutrients. This allows us to model at high resolution the dynamics of the coastal ocean as well as exchanges with the open ocean, the atmosphere and the land. Observational data helps us to assess the model performance and to improve our understanding of the coastal ocean biogeochemistry.

Key publications:

M. Frischknecht, M. Münnich and N. Gruber “Origin, Transformation, and Fate: The Three-​Dimensional Biological Pump in the California Current System”, Journal of Geophysical Research. Oceans 123, 7939-​7962 (2018).

E. Lovecchio, N. Gruber and M. Münnich “Mesoscale contribution to the long-​range offshore transport of organic carbon from the Canary Upwelling System to the open North Atlantic”, Biogeosciences 15, 5061-​5091 (2018).

E. Lovecchio, N. Gruber, M. Münnich, et al. “On the long-​range offshore transport of organic carbon from the Canary Upwelling System to the open North Atlantic”, Biogeosciences 14, 3337-​3369 (2017).

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