Comparison of in situ and satellite ocean color determinations of particulate organic carbon concentration in the global ocean

Abstract

Ocean color satellite missions have provided more than 16-years of consistent, synoptic observations of global ocean ecosystems. Surface chlorophyll concentrations (Chl) derived from satellites have been traditionally used as a metric for phytoplankton biomass. In recent years interpretation of ocean-color satellite data has progressed beyond the estimation of Chl. One of the newer ocean color products is particulate organic carbon (POC) concentration. In this paper we carry out comparisons of simultaneous satellite and in situ POC determinations. Our results indicate that the performance of the standard NASA POC algorithm (Stramski et al., 2008) is comparable to the standard empirical band ratio algorithms for Chl.

Keywords

• Ocean color
• Particulate organic carbon
• Satellite oceanography