Is U.S. JGOFS/SMP
Remotely Sensible?
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Dave Siegel |
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University of California, Santa Barbara |
Advances since SMP
started...
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Full suite of satellite sensors are in
orbit |
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Ocean color |
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Altimetry (sea level, eddies, dynamics) |
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SST (air-sea exchanges) |
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Scatterometry (wind stress) |
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Passive & active radar (sea ice,
SST, precip) |
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Data are freely available (but
difficult to use) |
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Get forcing & some BGC response (just
not all) |
Useful ocean color
products?
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Chlorophyll (SeaWiFS is within spec of
35% rms) |
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Primary production (via bio-optical
models) |
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POC (via backscatter relationships) |
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CDOM (with links to photochemical
cycling) |
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Indices for phytoplankton community
structure |
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Solar fluxes into & within water
column |
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Heterotrophy??? |
SeaWiFS Chlorophyll
Primary Production
Distributions
POC
Chromophoric DOM
E. huxleyi Blooms
Indices of Heterotrophy??
Estimates of
Respiration??
What’s Missing?
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Difficult determinations |
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pCO2 & NO3
have some hope via regression analyses |
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DIC, DOC, f-ratio, BSi & export are
less hopeful |
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Aerosols obfuscate analyses of mineral
dust loading |
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Data assimilation |
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Enables satellite data to direct model
solutions |
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Issues with using Chlorophyll (C/Chl,
N/Chl ratio, etc.) |
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Other products (POC, CDOM, etc.) are
not used in models |
Summary
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Satellite data sets are finally ready
for prime time |
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Forcing & system responses can be
diagnosed enabling bio-physical couplings to be assessed |
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Frontal and eddy interactions |
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Convective mixing and spring bloom
events |
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Tropical and coastal dynamics |
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However, many important BGC system
responses remain beyond our reach |
Future Prospectus
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These new data streams enable new &
novel questions to be addressed |
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We are [almost] beyond the cal/val
& algorithm development stages |
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New era of biogeochemical oceanography
is approaching… hypothesis based science?? |