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Getting a Better View of the Arctic Ocean

On a rare sunny day in the Arctic, optical instruments are deployed off of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) vessel Oscar Dyson in the Chukchi Sea. WHOI postdoctoral scholar Sam Laney and colleagues from NOAA’s Auke Bay Labs (Juneau, Alaska) are conducting the first of two annual surveys of ocean optical properties in the Bering and Chukchi Seas. The data collected on these surveys, supported in part by the WHOI Arctic Research Initiative, will help improve the algorithms currently used to estimate the abundance of phytoplankton (microscopic plants) and overall ocean productivity from satellite images of ocean color. Sunny days provide a rare opportunity to measure optical properties in situ while sensors on a satellite snapped shots of the same location. (Photo by Sam Laney, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)