How do global ocean models represent mesopelagic microbial respiration?
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8A-002 - Hörsaal Ostufer / Lecture Hall East
GEOMAR - Standort Ostufer / GEOMAR - East Shore
Mesopelagic microbial respiration (or remineralisation) is considered to be of importance for the long-term carbon storage in the ocean. Yet, it is one of the least constrained processes in the ocean, determined directly by sparse and episodic in situ and in vitro observations. Furthermore, their comparison to assessments derived from AOU or in situ budgets shows large discrepancies.
Global biogeochemical ocean models provide a way to consistently integrate biogeochemical fluxes such as microbial respiration across large spatial and long temporal scales. They are also a popular tool for future projections of the carbon cycle. However, given the uncertainties arising from the sparsity and variability of observations, they represent this process in many different ways.
I here give an overview on the way global ocean models describe this microbial mesopelagic respiration, how model descriptions and their outcome may relate to observed estimates, and discuss potential sources of model-data mismatch.
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