Assimilation Modeling of Planktonic Processes In Chesapeake Bay with Aircraft and Satellite Ocean Color DataAlgal blooms throughout the Chesapeake Bay signal both the estuary's productivity and its response to changing climatic factors and human inputs. But algal blooms on a Baywide scale are patchy and transient, and difficult to capture. For more than seven years, Larry Harding and his colleagues have used information gathered from aircraft-mounted sensors to create one of the largest data sets of its kind on any coastal water body in the world. The observations from over 200 flights consist of remotely sensed measurements of chlorophyll and temperature covering the entire estuary. Since 1997 a new satellite, SeaWiFS, has given the researchers an additional capability for gathering large sets of remotely sensed data. Aircraft and satellites provide remarkable synoptic pictures of an estuary like the Chesapeake–an enormous advantage over more conventional methods; however they only measure the near-surface layer. In this project Harding and Raleigh Hood will combine remotely sensed measurements with those taken from on-site buoys (the Chesapeake Bay Observing System) and from ships. They will integrate all these data in order to track changes in phytoplankton biomass over time and–in conjunction with a coupled biological and physical model of the Bay–provide improved estimates of algal production. These analyses and projections will extend current surface observations and provide greater dimension to our picture of the Bay's changing food web. Data from the Ocean Data Acquisition System (ODAS) is available by anonymous ftp at ftp://www.mdsg.umd.edu/Public/his_chl. More information about remote sensing is available at Chesapeake Bay Remote Sensing, part of the Bay Science Gateway. |
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Lawrence W. Harding, Jr.
University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and Maryland Sea Grant Raleigh R. Hood University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science |
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