ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Mar. Sci.
Sec. Coastal Ocean Processes
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmars.2025.1601284
This article is part of the Research TopicAdvanced Monitoring, Modelling, and Analysis of Coastal Environments and EcosystemsView all 34 articles
A Coupled Physical-Biogeochemical Modeling Approach to Investigate the Dynamics of the Benguela Upwelling System
Provisionally accepted
- 1CMCC Foundation - Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change, Bologna, Italy
- 2Department of Physics and Astronomy, Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna, Bologna, Italy
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The Benguela Upwelling System is one of the most productive marinecoastal ecosystems globally, driven by wind-induced upwelling of cold,nutrient-rich deep waters. However, the system's complexity, combinedwith data scarcity, has left its dynamics and long-term response to awarming climate insufficiently understood. This study employs ahigh-resolution coupled physical-biogeochemical modeling system, usinga two-way nesting strategy, to investigate the dynamics of theBenguela Upwelling System over a four-decade period (1980--2020). Thephysical model component, the Nucleus for European Modeling of theOcean (NEMO), is coupled with the Biogeochemical Flux Model (BFM) toreproduce both physical and biogeochemical dynamics within ahigh-resolution Benguela domain. The physical component demonstratesgood skill in replicating observational annual and seasonalclimatologies of seawater temperature, salinity, and near-surfacecurrents. The simulated biogeochemical fields satisfactorily comparewith observational datasets available in the Benguela region forinorganic nutrients, dissolved oxygen, and upper ocean Chlorophyll-aconcentrations. Model outcomes were then used to investigate thelong-term sea surface temperature and Chlorophyll-a trends byfocusing on the upwelling zone, where a cooling trend was detected inboth the northern and southern Benguela subregions, suggesting theoccurrence of an upwelling intensification in recent decades.Although a positive Chlorophyll-a trend was observed in bothsubregions, the loose correspondence in either location or timing withthe surface temperature signal indicates that algal growth is onlypartly influenced by the upwelling intensity. This coupled modelingframework provides valuable insights into the Benguela UpwellingSystem and could serve as a basis for improving our understanding ofthe variability in physical and ecological processes over recentdecades.
Keywords: Benguela upwelling system, Physical-biogeochemical modeling, marine biogeochemistry, Coastal ecosystems, Seawater Temperature Trends, climate warming
Received: 27 Mar 2025; Accepted: 23 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Salama, Lovato, Butenschön and Zavatarelli. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Amr Talaat Salama, CMCC Foundation - Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change, Bologna, Italy
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