Arctic Ecosystem Changes from Gloal Community Earthc System Model (CESM) and Regional Arctic System Model (RASM)

The Arctic Ocean is currently experiencing rapid and large environmental changes related to global warming. Many small scale physical processes, such as mesoscale eddies, mixed layer dynamics, ocean boundary and coastal currents, varying sea ice edges, upwelling can influence nutrient transport, light availability and ocean stratification, thus are critical for understanding marine primary production and carbon cycling in the Arctic Ocean. A high-resolution pan-Arctic regional earth system model (RASM) was developed to investigate the ecosystem response to climate changes in seasonal to decadal scales. We will show initial results from the high resolution ecosystem model and comparison with results from coarse resolution global community earth system model. Both models include coupled ice algal submodel at the bottom of sea ice and intermediate NPZD pelagic ecosystem submodel in water column. Nutrients transport and primary production in sea ice and water column will be discussed.