Impact of waves on phytoplankton activity on  the Northwest European Shelf: insights from  observations and km-scale coupled models

Partridge, Dale; Berthou, Ségolène; Millington, Rebecca; Clark, James R.; Bricheno, Lucy; Castillo, Juan Manuel; Rulent, Julia; Lewis, Huw

doi:10.5194/os-22-345-2026

Articles | Volume 22, issue 1

https://doi.org/10.5194/os-22-345-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/os-22-345-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 22, issue 1

Research article

|

02 Feb 2026

Research article |

| 02 Feb 2026

Impact of waves on phytoplankton activity on the Northwest European Shelf: insights from observations and km-scale coupled models

Dale Partridge, Ségolène Berthou, Rebecca Millington, James R. Clark, Lucy Bricheno, Juan Manuel Castillo, Julia Rulent, and Huw Lewis

Data sets

ESA Ocean Colour Climate Change Initiative: Monthly climatology of global ocean colour data products at 4 km resolution, Version 6.0 B. Calton et al. https://catalogue.ceda.ac.uk/uuid/690fdf8f229c4d04a2aa68de67beb733

Atlantic-European northwest shelf - Wave physics reanalysis A. Saulter https://doi.org/10.48670/moi-00060

Model code and software

AMM15 Biogeochemistry Setup Scripts Dale Partridge https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18429695

Short summary

Phytoplankton blooms are governed by the availability of light and nutrients, both of which are affected by mixing in the upper layers of the ocean, which is impacted by wave activity on the surface. Most numerical ocean models estimate waves through a parameterisation, here we explicitly resolve waves through a coupled wave model to examine the impact on the strength and timing of phytoplankton blooms, particular during storms when wave activity is elevated.