Unique steady annual cycle in marine ecosystem model simulations

Abstract:

Marine ecosystem models are important to assess the ocean biota's role in climate change and to identify relevant biogeochemical processes by validating the model outputs against observational data. For the assessment of the marine ecosystem models, the existence and uniqueness of an annually periodic solution (i.e., a steady annual cycle) is desirable. To analyze the uniqueness of a steady annual cycle, we performed a larger number of simulations starting from different initial concentrations for a hierarchy of biogeochemical models with an increasing complexity. The numerical results suggested that the simulations finished always with the same steady annual cycle regardless of the initial concentration. Due to numerical instabilities, inadmissible approximations of the steady annual cycle, however, occurred in some cases for the three most complex biogeochemical models. Our numerical results indicate an unique steady annual cycle for practical applications.

Content:

Files with the tracer concentrations of the reference solution

Files including the different initial tracer concentrations which are not constant

SQLite database including the results of the different simulations starting from various initial concentrations

Files with the tracer concentrations of the different simulations starting from various initial concentrations