Lagrangian and Eulerian time and length scales of mesoscale ocean chlorophyll from Bio-Argo floats and satellites

McKee, Darren C.; Doney, Scott C.; Della Penna, Alice; Boss, Emmanuel S.; Gaube, Peter; Behrenfeld, Michael J.; Glover, David M.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-5927-2022

Articles | Volume 19, issue 24

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-5927-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-5927-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 19, issue 24

Research article

|

21 Dec 2022

Research article |

| 21 Dec 2022

Lagrangian and Eulerian time and length scales of mesoscale ocean chlorophyll from Bio-Argo floats and satellites

Darren C. McKee, Scott C. Doney, Alice Della Penna, Emmanuel S. Boss, Peter Gaube, Michael J. Behrenfeld, and David M. Glover

Data sets

NAAMES BGC-Argo Float Data University of Maine In-Situ Sound and Color Lab http://misclab.umeoce.maine.edu/floats/

Argo float data and metadata from Global Data Assembly Centre (Argo GDAC) - Snapshot of Argo GDAC of February 10st 2021 Argo https://doi.org/10.17882/42182#81474

NOAA Global Drifter Program quality-controlled 6-hour interpolated data from ocean surface drifting buoys Rick Lumpkin and Luca Centurioni https://doi.org/10.25921/7ntx-z961

GlobColour ACRI-ST GlobColour Team https://hermes.acri.fr/

DUACS DT2018: 25 years of reprocessed sea level altimetry products G. Taburet, A. Sanchez-Roman, M. Ballarotta, M.-I. Pujol, J.-F. Legeais, F. Fournier, Y. Faugere, and G. Dibarboure https://doi.org/10.5194/os-15-1207-2019

Global ocean gridded L4 sea surface heights and derived variables reprocessed (1993–ongoing) Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service https://doi.org/10.48670/moi-00148

Short summary

As phytoplankton (small, drifting photosynthetic organisms) drift with ocean currents, biomass accumulation rates should be evaluated in a Lagrangian (observer moves with a fluid parcel) as opposed to an Eulerian (observer is stationary) framework. Here, we use profiling floats and surface drifters combined with satellite data to analyse time and length scales of chlorophyll concentrations (a proxy for biomass) and of velocity to quantify how phytoplankton variability is related to water motion.