Model
Computer simulation of shelf sea
physics and biogeochemistry
The Model
Background
The original Shelf Sea Physics and Primary Production
(S2P3) model was produced alongside the textbook in 2012.
A new version is now available with these main changes:
1.
The model now includes dissolved oxygen as a state
variable, responding to air-sea gas flux, phytoplankton
photosynthesis and respiration, remineralisation of
organic detritus, and vertical mixing.
2.
Meteorological forcing is now hourly, rather than daily.
This was done to take advantage of the ERA5
meteorological data available from the European Centre
for Medium Range Weather Forecasting.
3.
The Help information has been updated, and now works
with current versions of Windows.
The model simulates the vertical structure of a shelf sea
influenced by seasonal heating/cooling, tidal currents and
winds. The physics in the model drives a simple primary
production model, illustrating how phytoplankton growth
responds to changes in stratification and mixing.
Related papers
Research that I have been involved in that has utilised this
model (or earlier versions) is published in:
Sharples, J., and P. Tett, 1994. Modelling observations of the
seasonal cycle of primary productivity: the importance of
short-term physical variability. Journal of Marine Research
52, 219-238.
Sharples, J., O. N. Ross, B. E. Scott, S. P. R. Greenstreet,
and H. Fraser, 2006. Inter-annual variability in the timing of
stratification and the spring bloom in the North-western North
Sea. Continental Shelf Research, 26, 733-751.
Sharples, J. 2008. Potential impacts of the spring-neap tidal
cycle on shelf sea primary production. Journal of Plankton
Research, 30(2), 183-197.
Bissinger, J. E., D. J. S. Montagnes, J. Sharples, & D.
Atkinson 2008. Predicting marine phytoplankton maximum
growth rates from temperature: Improving on the Eppley curve
using quantile regression. Limnology & Oceanography, 53,
487-493
Using the model:
The model is run from a Windows GUI, with all driving
parameters controlled by the user.
Download a zipped file of the model and associated documentation
here. This version of the model is the latest as on 2nd August
2023. It has had a small bug in the budgeting of the dissolved
oxygen fixed and the default set-up of depth and tidal currents is
now for the central Celtic Sea site used during the UK Shelf Sea
Biogeochemistry resreach programme. Two meteorological data
files can also be accessed for the years 2014 and 2015 which is
when the main UK Shelf Sea Biogeochemistry cruise and mooring
programme took place.
The original version of the model is available here.
Unzip the files into a dedicated directory on your pc hard drive (e.g.
c:\s2p3\) and away you go.
Have a look at this video to see how
the model appears when you run it: