Models of harmful algal blooms : conceptual, empirical, and numerical approaches

Abstract

Now is an historic time in the field of harmful algal bloom (HAB) science. HAB problems are growing worldwide, and society’s need for understanding these phenomena is more pressing than ever. Technological advances have expanded our capabilities for observing the ocean, providing unprecedented opportunities not only for the detection of blooms, but also for the physical, chemical, and biological factors that trigger their initiation, development, and ultimate demise. However, despite these rapidly expanding observational capabilities, HAB processes will continue to be undersampled for the foreseeable future, owing to the wide range of space and time scales relevant to these oceanographic phenomena. As such, we must rely on models to help interpret our necessarily sparse observations. Such models can take many forms, ranging from conceptual models, to simple analytic formulae, to complex numerical models that assimilate data (Franks, 1997). Of course, the topic of HAB modeling is embedded within, and benefits from, the accomplishments of the broader field of physical-biological interactions generally (Franks, 1995; Hofmann and Friedrichs, 2002; Blackford et al., 2007; Lynch et al., 2009).