South Atlantic Associated Investigators: Related Web Sites: Related Time Series: The Atlantic Meridional Transect (AMT) is a multidisciplinary program which undertakes biological, chemical and physical oceanographic research during an annual voyage between the UK and destinations in the South Atlantic. AMT began in 1995, with scientific aims to assess mesoscale to basin-scale phytoplankton processes, the functional interpretation of bio-optical signatures and the seasonal, regional and latitudinal variations in mesozooplankton dynamics. The program provided a platform for international scientific collaboration, including the calibration and validation of SeaWiFS measurements and products. The measurements of hydrographic and bio-optical properties, plankton community structure and primary production completed during the first 12 transects (1995-2000) represent the most coherent set of repeated biogeochemical observations over ocean basin scales. This unique dataset has led to several important discoveries concerning the identification of oceanic provinces, validation of ocean color algorithms, distributions of picoplankton, the identification of new regional sinks of carbon dioxide and variability in rates of primary production and respiration. In 2002, the program restarted (2002-2006) and broadened, to address a suite of cross-disciplinary questions concerning ocean plankton ecology and biogeochemistry and their links to atmospheric processes. The program is coordinated and led by Plymouth Marine Laboratory in collaboration with the National Oceanography Centre. The time series "boxes" shown here were created from the AMT dataset by Todd O'Brien, of the NOAA COPEPOD project, for use in the IOC-UNESCO IGMETS ( http://igmets.net) global time series analysis. The raw AMT data were first divided and spatially averaged into 5 x 5 degree (latitude x longitude) boxes. Only those "AMT-box" that qualified for the IGMETS "TW05" (five year, 2008-2012) time window are shown here. |