Increasing Biomass in the Warm Oceans: Unexpected New Insights From SeaWiFS

Abstract

AbstractMarine phytoplankton biomass and community structure are expected to change under global warming, with potentially significant impacts on ocean carbon, nutrient cycling, and marine food webs. Previous studies have indicated decreases of primary production and chlorophyll a concentrations and oligotrophic gyre expansions from satellite ocean‐color measurements, purportedly due to global warming. We review this topic via a reanalysis of a novel backscattering‐based phytoplankton functional type and phytoplankton biomass time series over the 1997–2010 period. Unlike previous work, we find that globally the biomass and the percent of large (small) phytoplankton increase (decrease). The oligotrophic gyres contract or expand depending on the chlorophyll a threshold definition employed. In the subtropical gyres, chlorophyll a trends are likely due to physiological changes, while the increasing biomass trends are due to winds and relevant mixing length scale increases.