When is Dinner Served? Predicting the Spring Phytoplankton Bloom in the Gulf of Maine

Denise Blaha, denise.blaha@unh.edu, Author
Amy Holt Cline, amy.cline@unh.edu, Author

UNH Coastal Observing Center
Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space
University of New Hampshire

Phytoplankton are microscopic plants that form the base of the marine food chain. Though they are small, the energy they capture from the sun through photosynthesis helps to sustain almost all life in the ocean. They're also important to life on land: phytoplankton produce more than half of Earth's oxygen supply.

In this chapter, users learn about the variables that influence the abundance of phytoplankton. They apply this knowledge to make predictions about the timing of the spring phytoplankton bloom in the Gulf of Maine. Users obtain and graph data from buoy monitoring stations and interpret them to make their predictions. They check their predictions by examining chlorophyll concentration data at each buoy. Users also compare their predictions with reality by obtaining and examining MODIS satellite images to view the full extent of the bloom over time.