Adrian Burd
Department of Marine Science, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA

Modeling Marine Particles and Biogeochemistry

Marine particles play many important roles in the ocean. They provide substrates for microbial activity as well as food for meso- and bathypelagic food webs. In addition, the vertical transport of particulate material affects biogeochemical cycles. Predicting how particle-dependent processes vary spatially and temporally is important for understanding how marine biogeochemical processes may change over time.

A variety of models describing particle aggregation and settling are currently in use and vary from quite simple descriptions to those that are more comprehensive but computationally more expensive. In this talk I will give an overview of these attempts to model particle processes, highlighting their relationship to data, their various applications, and describe new modeling approaches that are under development. I will also highlight the modeling challenges that are faced as well as the observational challenges facing model verification.