Articles | Volume 14, issue 20
https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-14-4767-2017
https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-14-4767-2017
Research article
 | 
25 Oct 2017
Research article |  | 25 Oct 2017

Primary production sensitivity to phytoplankton light attenuation parameter increases with transient forcing

Karin F. Kvale and Katrin J. Meissner
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Short summary
Climate models containing ocean biogeochemistry contain a lot of poorly constrained parameters, which makes model tuning difficult. For more than 20 years modellers have generally assumed phytoplankton light attenuation parameter value choice has an insignificant affect on model ocean primary production; thus, it is often overlooked for tuning. We show that an empirical range of light attenuation parameter values can affect primary production, with increasing sensitivity under climate change.
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