 A green ocean is a productive ocean; the light from the sun helps the phytoplankton -- tiny ocean plants -- to be productive. This production in turn drives ocean food webs.
New research, published in Science on April 26, assesses the color of the ocean and finds that many key ecosystem parameters describing marine food web function are nearly constant across the entire North Atlantic Ocean. The research is also expected to yield clues about the carbon cycle and global warming.
David Siegel, professor of geography at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and first author on the paper, analyzed satellite ocean color data from the ‘Sea-viewing Wide Field of view Sensor’ called "Sea WiFS" to address the factors regulating the spring bloom of phytoplankton in the North Atlantic Ocean.
For MoreLabels: carbon cycle, global warming |
