Basin scale estimates of Sea Surface Nitrate and New Production from remotely sensed Sea Surface Temperature and Chlorophyll

The highly variable nature of T-N relationships in oceanic waters has restr icted nitrate (N) measurements from remotely sensed sea surface temperature (SST) to small time and space domains. Here we show that if changes in T-N relationships resulting from phytoplankton (chlorophyll a) are taken into account, remote sensing can be exploited to provide high resolution maps of sea surface nitrate (SSN) that are valid over much larger scales than has been previously possible. We illustrate the potential of the method for mon itoring basin scale, interannual variations in SSN in the north Pacific Oce an using co-registered imagery of SST and chi a and demonstrate the usefuln ess of such data for estimating basin scale annual new production.