The Response of Phytoplankton Size Spectra and Chlorophyll Biomass to Wind-driven Coastal Upwelling off Northern California During the CoOP-WEST Study.
Abstract
During the WEST (Wind Events and Shelf Transport) summer studies of the coastal upwelling region off Bodega Bay, CA, chlorophyll concentrations consistently reached phytoplankton bloom levels following wind driven upwelling events that resulted in high concentrations of pCO2 and nutrients. In most coastal upwelling areas, upwelled nitrate and high rates of new production lie close to the coast in a distinct plume, and their consequences (a band of enhanced chlorophyll) are propagated seaward far beyond the point where upwelled nutrients have been exhausted. Most likely grazing on advected diatoms results in release of regenerated N (ammonium and urea) that is taken up by the small-sized phytoplankton that out-compete diatoms for ammonium and consequently carry coastal new production offshore in the upper layer current system. However in the WEST study area the growing phytoplankton (showing high rates of new production) and productivity are retained on the shelf, and apparently transported alongshore rather than offshore most of the time. The elevated chlorophyll (reaching over 30 μg/l in June 2000) is made up of mostly larger phytoplankton cells with the diatom Chaetoceros spp. dominating during the bloom events. These cells may be grazed or sink and be carried in sub surface currents and re-entrained in the undercurrent, unlike smaller cells that remain in the upper layer. Surface distributions of chlorophyll and phytoplankton size spectra and fluorescence obtained using a CytoSense flow cytometer will be compared between upwelling spring cruises and a non upwelling winter cruise to the CoOP-WEST study site off Bodega Bay, CA.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2002
- Bibcode:
- 2002AGUFMOS61D..08W
- Keywords:
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- 4279 Upwelling and convergences;
- 4516 Eastern boundary currents;
- 4845 Nutrients and nutrient cycling;
- 4855 Plankton