Mesoscale contribution to the long-range offshore transport of organic carbon from the Canary Upwelling System to the open North Atlantic

Lovecchio, Elisa; Gruber, Nicolas; Münnich, Matthias

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-15-5061-2018

Articles | Volume 15, issue 16

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-15-5061-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-15-5061-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 15, issue 16

Research article

|

27 Aug 2018

Research article |

| 27 Aug 2018

Mesoscale contribution to the long-range offshore transport of organic carbon from the Canary Upwelling System to the open North Atlantic

Elisa Lovecchio, Nicolas Gruber, and Matthias Münnich

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-15-5061-2018-supplement

Data sets

ROMS+NPZD model data: turbulent and mesoscale contribution to the transport of organic carbon in the Canary Upwelling System E. Lovecchio, M. Münnich, and N. Gruber https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000278536

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Short summary

We find that the ocean's flow on scales of a few tens to a few hundred km has a central role in the lateral redistribution of the organic carbon from the coast to the open ocean. Narrow coastal filaments drive the offshore flux of organic carbon and strongly enhance its availability up to 1000 km from the coast. Eddies extend the flux up to 2000 km offshore containing 30 % of the organic matter in the open waters. Resolving these scales is essential to capture the coastal/open ocean coupling.