Ocean circulation and impacts on plankton near the Florida Keys

The flow structure of the loop current as it passes the Florida Keys and flows into the Florida Straits will be described. Results from a hybrid coordinate ocean model (HYCOM) applied to the region will then be presented. Finally, an NPZD (nutrient–photoplankton–zooplankton–detritus) model will be introduced into the dynamically active flow as passive tracers, with the purpose of evaluating the consequences of transport of these components. As a consequence, spatial distributions are shown to be highly variable and complex. Ultimately we will address the question as to what the dynamical consequences are of being stochastically taken from one domain of attraction into another at successive times—in static models one or another domain is prescribed due to parameter choices. In dynamic models such as this one the parameters change as a function of time, so switching from one domain to another occurs periodically.