Contrasted Contribution of Intraseasonal Time Scales to Surface Chlorophyll Variations in a Bloom and an Oligotrophic Regime

Type : ACL
Nature : Production scientifique
Au bénéfice du Laboratoire : Oui
Statut de publication : Publié
Année de publication : 2020
Auteurs (5) : KEERTHI M,g LÉVY Marina AUMONT O LENGAIGNE Matthieu ANTOINE David
Revue scientifique : Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans
Volume : 125
Fascicule : 5
Pages :
DOI : 10.1029/2019JC015701
URL : https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2019JC015701
Abstract : Abstract Understanding long-term variations of ocean ecosystems requires untangling the time scales involved in their natural fluctuations. We applied a temporal decomposition procedure to two decades of satellite ocean color observations to characterize the time variability of surface chlorophyll-a (SChl) in the Mediterranean Sea. In order to assess the reliability of the satellite data at capturing intraseasonal, seasonal, and interannual variability, we first show that satellite SChl data compare well with field data of chlorophyll-a fluorescence from the long-term BOUSSOLE time series, at all three time scales. The decomposition procedure is then applied to satellite SChl and to mixing-layer depth (MxLD) data from an ocean reanalysis, both at the scale of the entire Mediterranean Sea. Our results reveal similar amplitude for the seasonal and intraseasonal SChl variations in the northwestern bloom region, together explaining about 90\% of the SChl variance. Coherent seasonal SChl variations occur at the scale of the bloom region (~400 km) and are tightly connected with seasonal MxLD changes. Intraseasonal SChl fluctuations occur at smaller spatial scales (~100 km), suggesting they would be generated by storms although they weakly correlate to variations of the MxLD reanalysis. Over the oligotrophic part of the Mediterranean Sea, about 80\% of the variability in both SChl and MxLD are explained by basin-scale (~1,000 km) seasonal variations. Intraseasonal variability occurs at much smaller spatial scales, typical of mesoscale activity (~30 km). These results support the hypothesis that seasonal SChl variations are driven by changes in MxLD, while mesoscale activity and storms drive the intraseasonal SChl fluctuations.
Mots-clés : intraseasonal variability, Mediterranean Sea, sea surface chlorophyll, mixing-layer depth, spring bloom
Commentaire : e2019JC015701 2019JC015701
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Citation :
Keerthi MG, Lévy M, Aumont O, Lengaigne M, Antoine D (2020) Contrasted Contribution of Intraseasonal Time Scales to Surface Chlorophyll Variations in a Bloom and an Oligotrophic Regime. J Geophys Res-Oceans 125 | doi: 10.1029/2019JC015701