and Society (CLICCS)
Focus on the coastal ocean
5 April 2023, by Niklas Keller
Photo: Hereon/Data from ESA (MERIS)
Where does the carbon come from? And where does it go? To date, Earth system models haven’t adequately investigated the processes at work in coastal waters: they either consider the whole world, at low resolution – or a given region in detail, but without global context. A new model from Dr. Moritz Mathis and colleagues now offers detailed insights without neglecting global processes.
Dubbed “ICON-Coast,” it combines the best of both worlds. “One strength of our global model is its ability to account for coupled interactions between the coast and the open ocean,” says Mathis. As a result, the absorption and distribution of carbon are easier to track, even beyond the borders of coastal regions. In contrast, in regional models the values at the open boundaries have to be estimated – which is imprecise.
With the new model, researchers can simulate dynamics around the globe and, for the first time, simultaneously explore selected regions in high resolution. “And it doesn’t have to be the coasts; for example, we can also look at the meltwater discharge from the Greenland Ice Sheet,” Mathis adds. Moreover, ICON-Coast isn’t limited to carbon; it could potentially be used to investigate other processes, such as the dynamics of storm surges.
CLICCS Quarterly
The article was published in CLICCS Quarterly, the news from the Cluster of Excellence every three month. Find full issue -> here.
Research Paper: Mathis et al. (2022): Seamless Integration of the Coastal Ocean in Global Marine Carbon Cycle Modeling