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- Title
Large variability in continental shelf production of phytoplankton carbon revealed by satellite.
- Authors
Jönsson, B. F.; Salisbury, J. E.; Mahadevan, A.
- Abstract
We estimate the net production of phytoplankton in the Gulf of Maine (GoM) over a 3- year period using satellite ocean color data in conjunction with surface velocities from a high-resolution operational ocean circulation model. Chlorophyll (chl-a) and light at- tenuation (K490) products are combined with a carbon to chlorophyll model to estimate the phytoplankton carbon (PC) stock in the euphotic layer. A satellite-based productivity, termed NCPe in analogy with net community production (NCP), is derived by tracking changes in satellite-derived PC from one satellite image to the next, along water parcel trajectories calculated with surface velocities from the ocean circulation model. Such an along-trajectory analysis of satellite data discounts the effect of advection that would otherwise contribute to the temporal change between consecutive images viewed in the fixed reference frame. Our results show a high variability of up to ±500mgCm-2 d-1 in NCPe on spatial scales of 10-100 km. A region-wide median NCPe of 40-50mgCm-2 d-1 is often prevalent in the Gulf, while blooms attain peak values of 400mgCm-2 d-1 for a few days. The spatio-temporal variability of NCPe in this region, though conditioned by seasonality, is dominated by events lasting a few days, which if integrated, lead to large inter-annual variability in the annual carbon budget. This study is a step toward achieving synoptic and time-dependent estimates of oceanic productivity and NCP from satellite data.
- Subjects
GULF of Maine; CONTINENTAL shelf; PHYTOPLANKTON; OCEAN color; CARBON content of seawater; CIRCULATION models; CHLOROPHYLL
- Publication
Biogeosciences Discussions, 2010, Vol 7, Issue 6, p8953
- ISSN
1810-6277
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.5194/bgd-7-8953-2010