Three-way principal component analysis as a powerful tool to process marine environmental data sets

A study of the marine ecosystem usually requires management of large and co mplex data sets. The multivariate technique "Three-way principal component analysis" has been applied to a relatively small set of oceanographic data. Sea water samples were collected during the Italian Antarctic Expedition 1 994-95 and the following parameters were considered: sea water temperature and salinity, dissolved oxygen, nutrients (silicate, phosphate, nitrate plu s nitrite) and phytoplanktonic pigments (total chlorophyll, chlorophyll a, phaeopigments, carotenoids). The resulting plots confirmed in a self-explan atory way some well-known assumptions, thus showing that "Three-way Princip al Component Analysis" is a powerful instrument for the interpretation of m arine environmental data sets.