Physiological flexibility of phytoplankton impacts modelled chlorophyll and primary production across the North Pacific Ocean

Sasai, Yoshikazu; Smith, Sherwood Lan; Siswanto, Eko; Sasaki, Hideharu; Nonaka, Masami

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-4865-2022

Articles | Volume 19, issue 20

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-4865-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-4865-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 19, issue 20

Research article

|

19 Oct 2022

Research article |

| 19 Oct 2022

Physiological flexibility of phytoplankton impacts modelled chlorophyll and primary production across the North Pacific Ocean

Yoshikazu Sasai, Sherwood Lan Smith, Eko Siswanto, Hideharu Sasaki, and Masami Nonaka

Data sets

Ocean Ecology Laboratory, Ocean Biology Processing Group, Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Aqua Chlorophyll Data; 2022 Reprocessing NASA Goddard Space Flight Center https://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/10.5067/AQUA/MODIS/L3M/CHL/2022/

Short summary

We have investigated the adaptive response of phytoplankton growth to changing light, nutrients, and temperature over the North Pacific using two physical-biological models. We compare modeled chlorophyll and primary production from an inflexible control model (InFlexPFT), which assumes fixed carbon (C):nitrogen (N):chlorophyll (Chl) ratios, to a recently developed flexible phytoplankton functional type model (FlexPFT), which incorporates photoacclimation and variable C:N:Chl ratios.