Defining BGC-Argo-based metrics of ocean health and biogeochemical functioning for the evaluation of global ocean models

Abstract

Abstract. Numerical models of ocean biogeochemistry are becoming a major tool to detect and predict the impact of climate change on marine resources and ocean health. Classically, validation of such models relies on comparison with surface quantities from satellite (such as chlorophyll-a concentrations), climatologies, or sparse in situ data (such as cruises observations, and permanent fixed oceanic stations). However, these datasets are not fully suitable to assess how models represent many climate-relevant biogeochemical processes.  These limitations now begin to be overcome with the availability of a large number of vertical profiles of light, pH, oxygen, nitrate, chlorophyll-a concentrations and particulate backscattering acquired by the Biogeochemical-Argo (BGC-Argo) floats network. Additionally, other key biogeochemical variables such as dissolved inorganic carbon and alkalinity, not measured by floats, can be predicted by machine learning-based methods applied to float oxygen concentrations. Here, we demonstrate the use of the global array of BGC-Argo floats for the validation of biogeochemical models at the global scale. We first present 18 key metrics of ocean health and biogeochemical functioning to quantify the success of BGC model simulations. These metrics are associated with the air-sea CO2 flux, the biological carbon pump, oceanic pH, oxygen levels and Oxygen Minimum Zones (OMZs). The metrics are either a depth-averaged quantity or correspond to the depth of a particular feature. We also suggest four diagnostic plots for displaying such metrics.