www.biogeosciences.net/5/1395/2008/ © Author(s) 2008. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

• Main Authors: H. S. Findlay, T. Tyrrell, R. G. J. Bellerby, A. Merico, I. Skjelvan
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2007
• Subjects: Norwegian Sea
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.477.3547; http://www.biogeosciences.net/5/1395/2008/bg-5-1395-2008.pdf

Abstract. A coupled carbon-ecosystem model is compared to recent data from Ocean Weather Station M (66 ◦ N, 02 ◦ E) and used as a tool to investigate nutrient and carbon processes within the Norwegian Sea. Nitrate is consumed by phyto-plankton in the surface layers over the summer; however the data show that silicate does not become rapidly limiting for diatoms, in contrast to the model prediction and in contrast to data from other temperate locations. The model estimates atmosphere-ocean CO2 flux to be 37 g C m−2 yr−1. The sea-sonal cycle of the carbonate system at OWS M resembles the cycles suggested by data from other high-latitude ocean lo-cations. The seasonal cycles of calcite saturation state and [CO2−3] are similar in the model and in data at OWS M: val-ues range from∼3 and∼120µmol kg−1 respectively in win-ter, to ∼4 and ∼170µmol kg−1 respectively in summer. The model and data provide further evidence (supporting previ-ous modelling work) that the summer is a time of high satu-ration state within the annual cycle at high-latitude locations. This is also the time of year that coccolithophore blooms oc-cur at high latitudes. 1