Satellite Remote Sensing for Ocean Biology: An Indian Perspective

Oceans play an important role in maintaining the Earth's climate and provide vital natural resources. Ocean biota, in particular phytoplankton plays a fundamental role in regulating the Earth's energy balance. Atmospheric carbon is fixed by these organisms and further phytoplankton acts as primary producers in oceanic food webs. Space based observations using ocean colour sensors have provided unique information about the global distribution and temporal variability of oceanic phytoplankton. India has made significant progress in developing ocean colour science and have launched two ocean colour sensors namely OCM-1 and OCM-2. The data provided by these remote sensing instruments, on phytoplankton distribution around Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal has been extensively used to understand marine ecosystem, as well as for identifying productive regions for potential fishing zones. This paper provides a review of work done in India during the last three decades in the broad field of space based marine biology.