Satellite-based Estimates of Chlorophyll
(^) All of oceanography, particularly its physical and biological aspects, has been
intensely challenged by satellite data. Snapshots from space of temperature
distributions have challenged physical oceanographers, because earlier analyses of
data taken from ships were blurred by widely spaced stations and the motion of
patterns during sampling (low “synopticity”). Satellites swing across the Earth in
minutes, gathering images from very wide swaths. Some sit in geostationary orbits
and get instantaneous, nearly whole hemisphere images. In the mid-1970s, we were
suddenly able to see the layout of variability on scales of a few kilometers. This
reveals offshore jets and eddies, current meanders and surface ring structures. The
dynamism of ocean processes was a major surprise. There are only vague hints in the
literature that anyone anticipated that it would look as it does from this distant and
instantaneous perspective. Physicists had dropped the necessary higher-order terms in
their hydrodynamic models, thinking they were too small to have significant,