Robert Johnson¹, Peter Strutton¹, Simon Wright², Andrew McMinn¹, Klaus Meiners^3
1Institute of Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania, Hobart
²Australian Antarctic Division, Channel Highway, Kingston
³Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre, University of Tasmania, Hobart

IMAS Seminar Room – Sandy Bay
Friday 20 January, 1:00 PM

Abstract:
Remote sensing of Southern Ocean chlorophyll concentration is the most effective way to detect changes in phytoplankton populations driven by seasonality and climate change. However the current ocean colour algorithms significantly underestimates chlorophyll concentrations in the region. Here we use a long-term dataset from the eastern Southern Ocean (20 – 160°E) to develop two accurate algorithms, to replace NASA’s OC4v4 in southern high latitude regions and a novel GlobColour specific chlorophyll algorithm. These new algorithm improve in-situ vs. satellite chlorophyll retrieval coefficients of determination for SeaWiFS and GlobColour by 0.39 to 0.65 and 0.02 to 0.21 respectively. The significantly improved algorithms will permit more accurate estimates of standing stocks and more sensitive detection of regional and temporal changes.