FY 1997
Remote sensing of a pigment patch in the southeastern Bering Sea
Davis, R.F., G. Lazin, J.S. Bartlett, A.M. Ciotti, and P.J. Stabeno
In Proceedings of the SPIE, 2963, Ocean Optics XIII, Steven G. Ackleson (ed.), 654–657 (1997) |
| As a component of a NOAA program studying lower trophic level dynamics in the southeastern Bering Sea, 7 flights were performed in a NOAA P3 aircraft over the southeastern Bering Sea during April and May, 1996, collecting ocean color data with a multichannel radiometer. A research vessel operating on the Bering Sea shelf found a patch of increased chlorophyll concentration at approximately 56°N, 166°W. The increased chlorophyll concentration was clearly noticeable during subsequent overflights, both visually and in the real-time radiometer data. One flight was dedicated to delineating patch size. By then the patch had grown to be approximately 100 by 200 km in size, oriented roughtly NW-SE, just southeast of the Pribilof Islands, tracking SE to NW. On April 28, 1996 the patch edge passed over a bio-physical mooring equipped with in situ spectral absorption meters and fluorometers. Estimates of pigment concentration at this mooring increased 12 fold in 6 hours with the passage of the feature. A drifter monitoring ocean color released near the mooring also detected the patch. |
