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Carbon-based ocean productivity and phytoplankton physiology from space
National Aeronautic and Space Administration, Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, USA
School of Marine Sciences, University of Maine, Orono, Maine, USA
Institute for Computational Earth System Science, University of California, Santa Barbara, California, USA
Science Applications International Corporation, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, USA
Ocean biogeochemical and ecosystem processes are linked by net primary production (NPP) in the ocean's surface layer, where inorganic carbon is fixed by photosynthetic processes. Determinations of NPP are necessarily a function of phytoplankton biomass and its physiological status, but the estimation of these two terms from space has remained an elusive target. Here we present new satellite ocean color observations of phytoplankton carbon (C) and chlorophyll (Chl) biomass and show that derived Chl:C ratios closely follow anticipated physiological dependencies on light, nutrients, and temperature. With this new information, global estimates of phytoplankton growth rates (μ) and carbon-based NPP are made for the first time. Compared to an earlier chlorophyll-based approach, our carbon-based values are considerably higher in tropical oceans, show greater seasonality at middle and high latitudes, and illustrate important differences in the formation and demise of regional algal blooms. This fusion of emerging concepts from the phycological and remote sensing disciplines has the potential to fundamentally change how we model and observe carbon cycling in the global oceans.
Received 21 May 2004; accepted 2 November 2004; published 25 January 2005.
Citation: (2005), Carbon-based ocean productivity and phytoplankton physiology from space, Global Biogeochem. Cycles, 19, GB1006, doi:10.1029/2004GB002299.
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