Spaceborne quantitative assessment of dissolved organic carbon fluxes in the Kara Sea Original Research Article

An advanced algorithm for retrieval of phytoplankton chlorophyll (CHL) and dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentrations from MERIS images of the Kara Sea is presented. The supply of DOC of terrestrial origin into the Kara Sea is numerically assessed from satellite data on DOC and historical records of river discharge rates. It exceeds the historical in situ values only by 25%. Satellite data on CHL were exploited for calculating the phytoplankton columnar biomass and the total phytoplankton biomass in the Kara Sea. Remote sensing and in situ data were used to calculate the value of the coefficient (KPH) for calculation from phytoplankton biomass of autochthonous production of DOC. KPH proved to be 142 ± 8 gC/gPH/month and exhibited only slight interannual variations. The coefficient KPH was employed for the first time to evaluate the production of autochthonous DOC in the Kara Sea and to correct the value of the allochthonous DOC flux initially retrieved from space across the Kara Sea.