MAREMIP MARine Ecosystem Model Intercomparison Project

Welcome to MAREMIP

MARine Ecosystem Model Intercomparison Project

Ocean biogeochemistry is strongly influenced by the specific activity of various types of plankton. In an effort to improve the representation of marine ecosystems, ocean biogeochemistry models have evolved to include a growing number of organisms aggregated according to their functionality into "Plankton Functional Types" (PFTs). Such models - now called Dynamic Green Ocean Models (DGOMs) - open up new and exciting avenues of research to explore interactions between marine ecosystems and climate change on various time scales.

The parameterisation and evaluation of PFTs in models requires a wide range of observations. Much work has been done to measure the rates and biomass of plankton species using in situ observations, laboratory studies, and more recently satellite data.

The "MARine Ecosystem Model Intercomparison Project" (MAREMIP) aims to foster the development of models based on PFTs in order to progress towards the resolution of important scientific questions. MAREMIP will also help build a community around marine ecosystem models, promote the interactions between modellers and observationalists and the development of targeted observations, and document the evolution of marine ecosystem models.

Important scientific questions to be addressed with :

  • What are the main physical, chemical and biological processes that determine the global marine biomass, its regional distribution, its distribution among size classes and plankton groups, its organisation in biological provinces, its internal and external fluxes, its variability, and its resilience to change?

  • Are there multiple steady states in marine ecosystem distribution?

  • What are the impacts of global environmental changes on marine ecosystems, including climate change, ocean acidification, changes in nutrient input, and pressure by fisheries?

  • Are there possible regime shifts associated with future environmental changes?

  • What is the feedback from marine ecosystems to climate through the air-sea fluxes of CO2, N2, DMS and other climate-relevant gases?

  • What is the importance of lower-trophic level ecosystems for the availability of marine resources?

  • What is the role of ecosystem structure and biodiversity for biogeochemical fluxes, marine resources and climate?

  • What observations are we missing in order to further our understanding of marine ecosystems?

NEWS!


27 Feb. 2015
The manuscript titled "Drivers and uncertainties of future global marine primary production in marine ecosystem models" has been submitted by C. Laufkötter et al.

9 May. 2014
Future projection outputs from REcoM2 model (Alfred-Wegener Institute, GER) is now available.

25 Feb. 2014
MAREMIP businees meeting was held at Ocean Sciences Meeting

24 Feb. 2014
Successful science session held at Ocean Sciences Meeting lead by S.Doney & M. Vogt (MAREMIP SSC members)

6 Dec. 2013
MAREMIP business meeting will be held during 2014 Ocean Science Meeting, Hawaii, US.

Date: 25th Feb 2014
Time: 6:30pm-8:30pm
Location: Room 313A, Hawaii Convention Center (Same venue as 2014 Ocean Science Meeting)


 23 Nov. 2013
Co-chair (Dr.Doney) and SSC member (Dr.Vogt) will lead a science session, "Synthesis and modeling of global-scale marine planktonic ecosystems and plankton functional types", during 2014 Ocean Science Meeting, Hawaii, US! For more information about the session, please visit:
http://www.sgmeet.com/osm2014/sessionschedule.asp?SessionID=108