POSTER Session 2

LINKING HYPERSPECTRAL OPTICS, ENVIRONMENTAL VARIABLES, AND PHYTOPLANKTON PIGMENTS IN LONG ISLAND SOUND, USA

The Long Island Sound (LIS), east of New York City, USA, is a heavily urbanized estuarine ecosystem supported by a biodiverse and dynamic phytoplankton community. Monitoring changes in phytoplankton community structure in response to urban pressures, ocean warming, extreme events, and other environmental drivers is essential to protecting the health of the Sound, from fisheries to human populations. Routine in situ observations of water quality and phytoplankton indicators (e.g., Chl-a and other pigments) have been conducted at fixed stations across LIS by the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (CT DEEP) for over 30 years, providing an extremely valuable dataset for understanding seasonal-to-decadal ecological trends. However, in situ monitoring alone inherently leaves much of the Sound “unseen” over space and time. The recently launched NASA Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud ocean Ecosystem (PACE) satellite has ushered in a new age of hyperspectral ocean color remote sensing, providing unprecedented capability for detecting unique optical signatures of phytoplankton groups from space with daily, global coverage. Here, we explore connections between coincident in situ hyperspectral optical measurements (e.g., remote-sensing reflectance, phytoplankton absorption), remotely sensed environmental parameters (e.g., SST), and HPLC phytoplankton pigment data collected by CT DEEP in LIS over the last six years. These efforts will help us to better utilize the hyperspectral data from PACE and future missions (e.g., GLIMR, SBG) for enhanced, synoptic observation of phytoplankton community shifts in LIS.

Kyle Turner, The City College of New York, The City University of New York (CUNY), USA, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3682-1500

Maria Tzortziou, The City College of New York, The City University of New York (CUNY), USA, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4510-7827

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