Coupled Circulation/Biogeochemical Models To Estimate Carbon Flux

Quantifying the budgets and fluxes of nutrients andcarbon within the continental margins of the ocean is an important step for closing the global carbon budget and for developing and testing our understanding of processes that ultimately control these budgets. Continental margins are composed of the continental slope, shelf, and rise. These coastal regions are a crucial boundary between land and ocean, a focal point for the accumulation and transformation of nutrients, carbon, and anthropogenic effects. The influence of riverborne and airborne constituents on coastal biogeochemical cycles and budgets is a critical yet poorly quantified part of the carbon and related earth system cycles (Salisbury et al. 2001). A diverse suite of physical and biogeochemical processes act upon and transform these materials as they move from the atmosphere, to the watershed, through embayments and on to coastal and open ocean waters. Given the strong connections between the coastal regions and the open ocean, it is important to understand the role that continental margins play in the global carbon cycle and how these might be affected by changing climates, and various nutrient, dissolved organic matter (DOM) and particulate organic matter (POM) loads.