Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 4
Ecoinformatics Problems of the World
Ocean
4.1 The Present Day of the World Ocean
A more detailed description of the production processes in the ocean ecosystems is
needed in order to increase the reliability of assessing the role of the World Ocean
in the global carbon cycle. The biological processes play an important role along
with the physical and chemical processes of transformation and motion of carbon in
the ocean medium. In particular, phytoplankton, like the nutrient elements,
assimilates dissolved CO 2 from the salt water. As a result, an organic substance,
that partially goes to the nutrient chains of the trophic pyramid of a given basin of
the World Ocean and partially descends to bottom sediments, is formed. A totality
of all processes of carbon motion in the ocean medium creates a gradient of the CO 2
concentration between surface and deep waters. Therefore, the study of the structure
and functioning of the ocean ecosystems becomes one of the most important and
rapidly developing directions of marine biology. Its various aspects are being
developed in many countries within the framework of the International Biological
Programme. In particular, the international programme JGOFS (Joint Global Ocean
Flux Study) is dedicated to the study of biochemical processes in the ocean in order
to obtain a deeper knowledge of the response of the ocean to external forcings. One
of the goals of such studies is to obtain a method to predict the system
is behaviour
as a result of changes of some of its parameters. However, due to the unique nature
and broad spatial extent of the World Ocean, it is dif
'
cult to quantitatively estimate
all the elements of the system at different moments of its development and in
different regions of the World Ocean and, moreover, to assess the effect of their
change on the functioning of the system on the whole. With this aim in view,
regular expeditions are organized, databases of the satellite monitoring of the World
Ocean basins are accumulated, and methods of using the model approach for these
purposes are developed. Of course, an accuracy of assessing the role of water
ecosystems on global changes of GHGs cycles in general strongly depends on a
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