known. For example, within 30 km off the Peru coast, the surface 



chlorophyll biomass ranges from 0.4 to 40.0 u g chl I " and the inte- 



? 1 

 grated primary production f rom < 1 to >10 gC m day" (Walsh et. al., 



1980). Approximately 25 percent of shelf production ("1.6 x 10 tons C 

 yr , see Table 1-2) is thought to be sequestered as organic carbon 

 deposits on adjacent continental slopes. Although the anthropoqenic 

 input of nitrogen to the shelves may have increased tenfold over the 

 last 50 to 100 years, a sufficient time series of phytoplankton data is 

 not available to accurately specify changes in Drimary productivity or 

 shelf export to continental slopes. This lack of a proper SDatial and 

 temporal perspecitve has hindered our understanding and, therefore, our 

 ability to make accurate estimates of coastal productivity and subse- 

 quent carbon and nitrogen fluxes to the rest of the food web. 



Understanding the coastal ecosystem processes has far qreater 

 significance than their areal extent or contribution to total marine 

 carbon fixation would suggest because: 



a. The fate of carbon and nitrogen fixed in these highly 

 productive shelf regions is quite different from the oceanic 

 areas of the sea, sinking to slope depocenters instead of 

 grazing within the water column (Walsh et. al., 1981; Eppley 

 and Petersen, 1980). 



b. Impacts of human activity are greater in the coastal region. 



Thus, there is a strong motivation to obtain, for the first time, 

 synoptic biomass and productivity data required to study these highly 

 dynamic oceanographic regions over both long periods at decadal time 

 scales, and at the much higher Nyquist frequency for resolution of 

 biological processes. 



Preliminary investigations undertaken in the 1960s by Clarke, Ewing, 

 Lorenzen, Yentsch, and others provided evidence that the quality of liqht 

 reflected from the sea surface and remotely sensed by the aircraft instru- 

 mentation might be interpreted as phytoplankton biomass, i.e., chloro- 

 phyll, in the upper portion of the water column. These workers (e.q., 

 Clarke et. al., 1970) were limited by their equipment to an altitude of 3 



1-5 



