Aquatic Sciences Meeting, Albuquerque 2001

PC17 Phytoplankton Physiology and Ecology

Date: Thursday, February 15, 2001

Location: Southwest Hall

Brown, C, W, NOAA/National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service, Camp Springs, USA, christopher.w.brown@noaa.gov

Ondrusek, M, E, QSS Group, Camp Springs, USA, mondrusek@nesdis.noaa.gov

Maritorena, S, , University of California at Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, USA, stephane@icess.ucsb.edu

Hooker, S, B, NASA/GSFC/Code 970.2, Greenbelt, USA, stan@ardbeg.gsfc.nasa.gov

ESTIMATING TAXON-SPECIFIC PHYTOPLANKTON BIOMASS WITH SEA-SURFACE TEMPERATURES

Except in unique cases, methods relying solely on the use of spectral information derived from airborne and satellite sensors are unlikely to remotely characterize and provide biomass estimates of major phytoplankton classes. Additional approaches are required to augment spectral techniques. Preliminary examination of taxon-specific phytoplankton biomass (as derived from HPLC pigment data) and sea-surface temperatures collected during several Atlantic Meridional Transect (AMT) cruises indicates that a relationship may exist between the abundance of several marine phytoplankton classes and temperature in the surface layer. In particular, diatom chlorophyll concentration exhibits, with few exceptions, a relatively well defined, inverse relationship with temperature. Prochlorophyte biomass, in contrast to all other classes examined, displays a positive trend with temperature and appears to be mutually exclusive of diatom biomass. The variety of water masses sampled during the AMT cruises, which traversed the Atlantic Ocean between the United Kingdom and the Falkland Islands (more than 100 degrees of latitude), suggests that these relationships are applicable throughout much of the Atlantic Ocean and may be useful for estimating taxon-specific chlorophyll concentration with satellite-derived sea-surface temperatures.

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Aquatic Sciences Meeting, Albuquerque 2001

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