Simulation of drift of capelin larvae in the Barents Sea

Abstract

A model system consisting of a regional ocean circulation model and a particlebased larval transport model has been used to study the drift of capelin larvae in the Barents Sea. The modelled current pattern reproduces the important features in the Norwegian Coastal Current and the Norwegian Atlantic Current. For the four seasons 1988-91 particles were released at 11 spawning areas along the Troms-Finnmark-Kola coast. The particle trajectories from the model do not reproduce the offshore extent of the observed distributions of 0-group capelin in August/September. No clear reason for this discrepancy between the model results and the observations is found, but several factors are discussed.