and Baker, 1981) to be eventually extended to chanqes of fish populations 

 (Smith and Eppley, 1982). Prediction of primary productivity from CZCS 

 chlorophyll data is now limited by the high standard error or estimates 

 associated with any attempt to link biomass to growth rates. Regression 

 analyses are inherently non-causal (Walsh, 1971) and the same amount of 

 productivity variance could be correlated with either changes in biomass 

 or with changes in light and temperature. 



The results of the CZCS program to date have been sufficiently convincing; 

 however, a consideration is now underway for the flight of a newer genera- 

 tion instrument on the NOAA polar orbiting satellites in support of a large 

 number of users. This early work clearly indicates that concurrent ship, 

 buoy, airplane, and satellite data, with an appropriate sampling strategy, 

 must be utilized to provide a more accurate assessment of coastal primary 

 production on a regional basis. Once the algorithm for satellite sensing 

 of chlorophyll on the shelf is updated, an extensive simultaneous time 

 series of the world shelves can be obtained; during times of minimum 

 phytoplankton loss, the satellite sensed time rate of change of surface 

 chlorophyll can be used to estimate a lower bound of coastal primary 

 production. Additional information is required, however, on both the 

 depth distribution of phytoplankton and at time-space scales below the 

 Nyquist frequency of satellite observations, i.e., ~2 to 10 days depending 

 on cloud cover and ~2 km or twice the pixel length. 



2.3 AIRCRAFT REMOTE SENSING 



Restricted by cost and flight time to local areas, remote sensing by 

 aircraft nevertheless fills a critical gap in the space-time sampling 

 domain (Figure 2-1) between conventional measurements made from ships and 

 those currently within the capability of satellite sensors. Parameters 

 (Table 2-3) can be measured from aircraft platforms, such as salinity and 

 chlorophyll fluorescence, that are at least a decade away from being tech- 

 nologically feasible from space. The two sensors that are particularly 

 unique to aircraft platforms are laser (lidar) fluorosensors and microwave 



2-10 



