A dynamical approach to phytoplankton blooms

Abstract

Algae in the ocean absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and thus play an important role in the carbon cycle. An algal bloom occurs when there is a rapid increase in an algae population. We consider a reaction-advection-diffusion model for algal bloom density and present new proofs of existence and uniqueness results for the steady state solutions using techniques from dynamical systems. On the question of stability of the bloom profiles, we show that the only possible bifurcation would be due to an oscillatory instability.