Ocean productivity from space: Commentary

Ocean color measurements from satellites have been used to estimate global oceanic productivity for about 30years, but the approach still has many problems. A combination of more sophisticated satellite products with improved models has the potential of higher accuracy, but in reality the improvement in accuracy during the last two decades has been minimal. Persistent cloud cover over the oceans and low Sun elevation over polar areas severely limit the potential of operational satellite ocean color measurements. A combination of remote measurements from both satellites and suborbital platforms as well as from a large number of autonomous devices in the ocean can overcome these limitations in the future.