Using AI to understand Barents Sea transports

A close cooperation with Norway and Estonia explores the reasons for increasing ocean transports through the Barents Sea opening. Today, the relatively warm and salty waters, that originate for the Atlantic Ocean, have an increasing impact on the Barents Sea (the so called Atlantification process), which leads to sea ice loss and potentially irreversible and amplifying ecosystem changes. To understand…

A new model is born

Within the framework of the BMBF-funded project PrimePrevention we currently develop an ultra-high resolution model setup for the Kiel Bight (Baltic Sea). The new model setup will be named MOMKI. We look forward to the results of the first test simulations!

Ambiguous controls on simulated diazotrophs in the world oceans

Nitrogen fixers, are microorganisms that fix nitrogen from the air, making it available for ecosystems. It is known that they grow rather slowly so that they are easily taken advantage of by fast-growing algae – unless there is a lack of bioavailable nitrogen. This is when their unique property of “fixing” the nitrogen from the air comes into play. Surprisingly, nitrogen fixers in the…

Cyanobacteria blooms in the Baltic Sea

Blue-green algae (or cyanobacteria)  form regularly massive blooms in the Baltic Sea – especially in late summer. The bacteria can produce toxins and add bioavailable nitrogen fixed from the atmosphere to the already over-fertilized system. In the presented study, high-resolution model data from the Baltic Sea were combined with various observations. Simulated currents were used to trace the origin of…