Articles | Volume 10, issue 6
https://doi.org/10.5194/os-10-993-2014
https://doi.org/10.5194/os-10-993-2014
Research article
 | 
11 Dec 2014
Research article |  | 11 Dec 2014

Sensitivity of phytoplankton distributions to vertical mixing along a North Atlantic transect

L. Hahn-Woernle, H. A. Dijkstra, and H. J. Van der Woerd

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Short summary
Measured vertical mixing profiles are applied to a 1-D phytoplankton model. Results show that shifts in vertical mixing are able to induce a transition from an upper chlorophyll maximum to a deep one and vice versa. Furthermore, a clear correlation between the surface phytoplankton concentration and mixing-induced nutrient flux is found for nutrient-limited cases. This result suggests that characteristics of the vertical mixing could be determined from the surface phytoplankton concentration.