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Ocean productivity from space: Commentary
Author(s) -
Kahru Mati
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
global biogeochemical cycles
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.512
H-Index - 187
eISSN - 1944-9224
pISSN - 0886-6236
DOI - 10.1002/2016gb005582
Subject(s) - satellite , remote sensing , ocean color , environmental science , productivity , cloud cover , primary productivity , meteorology , cloud computing , computer science , geology , geography , ecosystem , aerospace engineering , engineering , ecology , biology , economics , macroeconomics , operating system
Abstract Ocean color measurements from satellites have been used to estimate global oceanic productivity for about 30 years, but the approach still has many problems. A combination of more sophisticated satellite products with improved models has the potential of higher accuracy, but in reality the improvement in accuracy during the last two decades has been minimal. Persistent cloud cover over the oceans and low Sun elevation over polar areas severely limit the potential of operational satellite ocean color measurements. A combination of remote measurements from both satellites and suborbital platforms as well as from a large number of autonomous devices in the ocean can overcome these limitations in the future.