Marine Science Faculty Publications
Surface-Ocean Color and Deep-Ocean Carbon Flux: How Close a Connection?
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1990
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.1016/0198-0149(90)90046-X
Abstract
Seven years of simultaneous, quasi-continuous data collected by the Nimbus-7 Coastal Zone Color Scanner and by a deep-ocean sediment trap in the Sargasso Sea allow the derivation of empirical relationships between remotely sensed ocean color and the sinking of particulate carbon into the deep sea. In agreement with earlier observations, the results indicate a 1.5-month lag between surface-ocean events observed by the satellite and arrival of a record of those events, carried by sinking particles, at a depth of 3200 m. In addition, the results suggest that the sea-surface area most influential on particle-flux characteristics recorded by the sediment trap in the Sargasso Sea lies to the northeast of the trap's mooring site. The results point towards possible ways of quantifying the role of marine biota in the regulation of atmospheric carbon dioxide through use of satellite observations.
Citation / Publisher Attribution
Deep Sea Research Part A, Oceanographic Research Papers, v. 37, issue 8, p. 1331-1343
Scholar Commons Citation
Deuser, W. G.; Muller-Karger, Frank E.; Evans, R. H.; Brown, O. B.; Esaias, W.; and Feldman, G., "Surface-Ocean Color and Deep-Ocean Carbon Flux: How Close a Connection?" (1990). Marine Science Faculty Publications. 1201.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/msc_facpub/1201
