Observational Oceanography: From the Crow’s Nest to Satellites
Ajit Subramaniam

Our knowledge of oceanographic processes, especially of heterogenous and patchily distributed biological processes is limited by lack of data at appropriate spatial and temporal scales. For example, our understanding of the processes that govern the structure of the phytoplankton community structure that make up the base of the food web is incomplete. Subsequently models that attempt to replicate or predict phytoplankton distributions at a point scale are often unsuccessful. In the past, field studies that attempted to study the processes that structure the phytoplankton community were challenged by the lack of synoptic data of both phytoplankton distributions and the physical and chemical forcing functions and had little scientifically valid basis for selecting the sampling locations. This presentation will use case studies of fieldwork from the last couple of decades to review the progress made and will provide the platform for discussion on how intelligent sensing could change observational oceanographic practices in the future.