Biogeosciences www.biogeosciences.net 1726-4170 1726-4189 5 2 2008 10.5194/bg-5-597-2008 http://www.biogeosciences.net/5/597/2008/ http://www.biogeosciences.net/5/597/2008/bg-5-597-2008.html http://www.biogeosciences.net/5/597/2008/bg-5-597-2008.pdf 597 614 2008-04-23 Climate-induced interannual variability of marine primary and export production in three global coupled climate carbon cycle models B. Schneider bschneider@gpi.uni-kiel.de L. Bopp M. Gehlen J. Segschneider T. L. Frölicher P. Cadule P. Friedlingstein S. C. Doney M. J. Behrenfeld F. Joos Laboratoire du Climat et de l'Environnement (LSCE), L'Orme des Merisiers Bât. 712, F-91191 Gif sur Yvette, France Max-Planck-Institut für Meteorologie, Bundesstrasse 55, D-20146 Hamburg, Germany Climate and Environmental Physics, Physics Institute, University of Bern, Sidlerstrasse 5, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland Dept. of Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA 02543-1543, USA Department of Botany and Plant Pathology, Cordley Hall 2082, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331-2902, USA Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland now at: Institute of Geosciences, University of Kiel, Ludewig-Meyn-Str. 10, D-24098 Kiel, Germany Fully coupled climate carbon cycle models are sophisticated tools that are used to predict future climate change and its impact on the land and ocean carbon cycles. These models should be able to adequately represent natural variability, requiring model validation by observations. The present study focuses on the ocean carbon cycle component, in particular the spatial and temporal variability in net primary productivity (PP) and export production (EP) of particulate organic carbon (POC). Results from three coupled climate carbon cycle models (IPSL, MPIM, NCAR) are compared with observation-based estimates derived from satellite measurements of ocean colour and results from inverse modelling (data assimilation). Satellite observations of ocean colour have shown that temporal variability of PP on the global scale is largely dominated by the permanently stratified, low-latitude ocean (Behrenfeld et al., 2006) with stronger stratification (higher sea surface temperature; SST) being associated with negative PP anomalies. 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