Annual variations in phytoplankton biomass driven by small-scale physical processes
In: Nature Geoscience. Nature Publishing Group: London. ISSN 1752-0894; e-ISSN 1752-0908, more
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| Authors | | Top |
- Keerthi, M.G.
- Prend, C.J.
- Aumont, O.
- Lévy, M.
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| Abstract |
Phytoplankton biomass exhibits substantial year-to-year changes, and understanding these changes is crucial to fisheries management and projecting future climate. These annual changes result partly from low-frequency climate modes that also lead to variations in sea surface temperature (SST). Here we evaluate the contribution of small scales to annual fluctuations based on a global analysis of satellite observations of sea surface chlorophyll (SChl), an indicator of phytoplankton biomass, and of SST from 1999 to 2018. We disentangle the spatio-temporal scales of variability in the time series and find that besides the prominent seasonal cycle, SChl is dominated by high-frequency fluctuations ( |
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