Ecosystem Modeling in the North Sea

The North Sea is an epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, which connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the South and the Norwegian Sea in the North. It hosts key north European shipping lanes, and it is a major fishery and a rich source of energy resources, including wind and wave power. Here we present a multi-year effort at developing a modeling infrastructure to support research in marine ecology and biogeochemistry in such highly, anthropogenically impacted system, and allow stakeholders taking informed decisions to sustainably manage its valuable resources. Our approach is fully open-source and mainly based on the numerical model COHERENS to simulate hydrodynamical and biogeochemical processes in three spatial dimensions and time. Our model is specifically validated against relevant in situ data in view of its main applications, for which it provides a large-scale virtual laboratory. For example, our model is used to investigate the impact of floating solar panel farms on primary production, but also to assess the efficiency of enhanced silicate weathering to serve as negative emission technology.

Abstract of an Oral Presentation or a Poster

AGU Annual Meeting, 11-15 December 2023, San Francisco, CA, USA