Phytoplankton and the optical properties of surface waters

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For decades, oceanographers have used optical measurements such as ocean color and chlorophyll fluorescence to describe the distributions of phytoplankton on scales from millimeters to ocean basins, with great success. And all along, researchers who study the biology of phytoplankton have shown that the fundamental processes that determine variability in these optical measurements - absorption of light by phytoplankton and its emission as chlorophyll fluorescence - can be strongly influenced by photosynthetic physiology, species composition and cell size. Optical observation of the ocean therefore has the potential to go "beyond biomass" toward synoptic, continuous and depth-resolved assessment of the physiological status and community structure of phytoplankton from measurements that are integral to ocean observing systems. In turn, it is recognized by some that these same measurements can be used to guide a next generation of physical, ecological and biogeochemical models that are directly constrained by optical observations describing the fundamental processes of light absorption and its utilization in photosynthesis, as well as the scattering of light by particles.