Development of a new expendable probe for the study of pelagic ecosystems from voluntary observing ships

[摘要] Physical and biological processes of the marine ecosystem have a highspatial and temporal variability, whose study is possible only through highresolution and synoptic observations. The Temperature and FluorescenceLaunchable Probe was charted in order to answer to the claim of a costeffective temperature and fluorescence expendable profiler, to be used inships of opportunity. The development of the expendable fluorometer hasfollowed similar concepts of the XBT (a wire conducting the signal to acomputer card), but differently from the latter it was developed with anelectronic system which can be improved and adapted to several variablesmeasure channels. To reach the aim of a low-cost probe, were utilizedcommercial components: a glass bulb temperature resistor for thetemperature measurement, blue LEDs, a photodiode and available selectiveglass filters, for the fluorescence measurement. The measurement principleemployed to detect phytoplankton's biomass is the active fluorescence. Thismethod is an in vivo chlorophyll estimation, that can get the immediate biophysicalreaction of phytoplankton inside the aquatic environment; it is anon-disruptive method which gives real time estimation and avoids theimplicit errors due to the manipulation of samples. The possibility of usinga continuous profiling probe, with an active fluorescence measurement, isvery important in real time phytoplankton's study; it is the best way tofollow the variability of sea productivity. In fact, because of the hightime and space variability of phytoplankton, due to its capability to answerin a relatively short time to ecological variations in its environment andbecause of its characteristic patchiness, there isn't a precise quantitativeestimation of the biomass present in the Mediterranean Sea.

[学科分类] 海洋学与技术