Posters

Poster Session 3, Wednesday,  October  5, 16:00–18:00

Poster 15

Monitoring and parameterization of plankton dynamics in the European Sector of the Arctic Ocean

Phytoplankton are responsible for releasing half of the World’s oxygen and for removing large amounts of carbon dioxide from the surface waters. Despite many studies on the topic conducted in the past decade, we are still far from a good understanding of ongoing rapid changes in the Arctic Ocean, and how they will affect phytoplankton and the whole ecosystem. An example is the difference in Net Primary Production (NPP) modeling estimates, which differ two times globally and fifty times when only the Arctic is considered. There is a difference between Net Primary Production (NPP) and Net Community Production (NCP). NPP shows the growth rates of phytoplankton, while NCP includes NPP and heterotrophic respiration. We are studying the relationship between NCP, NPP and various environmental factors. Our hypotheses are: 1) we could obtain more accurate NCP and NPP estimates using regionally developed algorithms based on optical in-situ data, and 2) variability of phytoplankton is closely linked to water stratification in Atlantic Waters and dissolved organic matter influenced by river runoff in the East Greenland Current. We use the in-situ data to validate the satellite Greenland Sea parameterization of global primary production model and modernize the input empirical relationships. To obtain basin estimates we use satellite chlorophyll, photosynthetically active radiation and sea surface temperature data. Resulted regional NCP and NPP models can be further used for system modelling of the dynamics of Arctic Ocean ecosystem and be one of the components in the ecosystem-based management of the region.

Alexandra Cherkasheva, Institute of Oceanography of Polish Academy of Sciences, [email protected], 0000-0003-0717-361X

Rustam Manurov, Institute of Oceanography of Polish Academy of Sciences, [email protected]

Piotr Kowalczuk, Institute of Oceanography of Polish Academy of Sciences, [email protected]