The Arctic Environmental Problems - New Ecoinformatics Tools in Environmental Science: Applications and Decision-making - page 514

include in the SSMAE an additional block with the description of its physical and
chemical characteristics. This procedure is demonstrated by examples of blocks that
simulate the characteristics of radionuclides, heavy metals and oil hydrocarbons.
The consideration of these pollutants is restricted to elements with averaged
properties.
The Arctic Basin aquatory ( ) which is studied in this chapter has boundaries

which include the peripheral Arctic seas as well as the coast line and southern
boundaries of the Norwegian and Bering Seas.

Ω

6.4.2 Structure of the Simulation Model

A conceptual diagram and the block contents of the SSMAE are shown in Fig. 6.3
and Table 6.4 . The functioning of the SSMAE is supported by the SGM and by the
climate model (CM). The SSMAE inputs are the data about the pollutant sources of
the near-shore Arctic Basin, the ice areas and the current maps. The SSMAE
contains three types of blocks: mathematical models of the natural ecological and
hydrophysical processes, service software and the scenarios generator. The marine
biota block (MBB) describes the dynamics of the energy flows in the trophical

chains of the Arctic Basin ecosystem. The hydrological block (HB) describes the
spatial discretization of

fl

on the water circulation in the Arctic. The pollution
simulation model (PSM) contains the anthropogenic scenarios and the service
control block (SCB) provides the control of the simulation experiment.
The Arctic ecosystem has a unique, complex food web that is fashioned by its
distinctive plankton, animal species, and environmental factors. Carbon also cycles
through the web from atmosphere to seawater and back. Phytoplankton and algae
take up carbon dioxide from seawater and transform it into the organic carbon of
their tissue. Then it

Ω

fl flows through successive levels of eating animals that convert

Fig. 6.3 Block-diagram of the SSMAE. Descriptions of the blocks are given in Table 6.4 . SGM is
the spatial global model (Krapivin 1993). CM is the climate model or the climate scenario