Aquatic Sciences Meeting, Albuquerque 2001

CS24 Optics

Date: Tuesday, February 13, 2001, Time: 3:00:00 PM

Location: Sandia/Santa Ana

Stramski, D, , Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, USA, stramski@mpl.ucsd.edu

Stramska, M, , Hancock Institute for Marine Studies, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA, stramska@usc.edu

Hapter, R, , Institute of Oceanology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Sopot, Poland,

Kaczmarek, S, , Institute of Oceanology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Sopot, Poland,

ON THE DETERMINATION OF THE PARTICULATE ABSORPTION COEFFICIENT FROM FILTER PAD TECHNIQUE

The major source of uncertainty in the determination of particulate absorption from filter pad technique is associated with increased pathlength due to scattering within the filter medium. The common approach to correct for pathlength amplification utilizes either quandratic or power function fits to empirical data describing the relationship between the optical density of particles on the filter (ODf) and the equivalent optical density in suspension (ODs). Published coefficients of these fits obtained with phytoplankton cultures exhibit differences which are poorly understood. Our experiments in various oceanic waters showed significant differences in the ODs versus ODf relationship for natural assemblages of marine particles. We observed such differences when we used the prevalent current practice of examining this relationship with no regard to light wavelength, that is by pooling data at all wavelengths into one data set. However, if the relationship between ODs and ODf is considered for each wavelength separately, the differences between experiments conducted in various regions are greatly reduced. We compare the particulate absorption coefficients obtained from this wavelength-dependent correction with those from the wavelength-independent approach.

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Aquatic Sciences Meeting, Albuquerque 2001

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