Marine primary production, estimated to be of the order of 50 Gt C per annum, is one of the biggest fluxes of carbon on our planet. Yet, in recent studies on global carbon budgets, the pools and fluxes of carbon in the ocean and trends in biological fields, as estimated by remote sensing, have not been taken into account. This project carried out a much needed systematic study of primary production in the ocean using the OC-CCI 20-year time series, photosynthetically active radiation and a newly assembled database on photosynthesis-irradiance parameters to model phytoplankton primary production. The results will contribute to our understanding of the role of the world’s oceans in the global carbon budget in a changing climate.

This project was funded by a European Space Agency Living Planet Fellowship 2019-2020