Description: |
Fixation of organic carbon by phytoplankton is the foundation of nearly all open-ocean ecosystems. But quantification and validation of ocean primary productivity at large scale remains a major challenge. Accurate primary productivity measurements from autonomous platforms would be highly desirable, due to much greater potential coverage. Here researchers estimate gross primary productivity over two months in the springtime North Atlantic from an autonomous Lagrangian float. They test method precision and accuracy by comparison against entirely independent estimates. [Source: Biogeosciences]
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