A NEW APPROACH TO EVALUATING SPATIAL VARIABILITY OF PHOTOCHEMISTRY BASED ON CHARACTERISATION OF OPTICAL WATER TYPE FROM SATELLITES

• Main Authors: Linda V. Martin Traykovski, William L. Miller, Heidi M. Sosik
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Northwest Atlantic
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.529.218; http://www.whoi.edu/science/B/sosiklab/162.pdf

We present a novel, satellite-based approach for studying the spatial variability of photochemistry in the upper ocean to better understand the importance of DOC photodegradation processes in the context of the global carbon cycle. Our method involves investigating the hypothesis that different optical water types have characteristically different apparent quantum yields for DOC photo-oxidation. Our efforts will be guided by four primary objectives. Our first objective is to make measurements of the quantum yield for photochemical oxidation of DOC to CO2 for a variety of optical water types in the Northwest Atlantic. The second objective is to refine our existing satellite-based optical water type classification techniques using in situ measurements of inherent and apparent optical properties for each water type. Once we have made detailed measurements and developed robust classifiers, the focus will be on interpreting the data in order to quantitatively assess the importance of upper-ocean DOC photo-oxidation in the carbon cycle. Our third objective is to apply our classifiers to satellite images of ocean colour for the Northwest Atlantic in order to identify the location and extent of each optical water