Satellite and in situ observations of eddies and biological implications.

In the past few decades, eddies have been identified as an important source of nutrients to the euphotic zone. We investigate the biophysical role of eddies using both remote and in situ observations. Remote observations are capable of sampling thousands of eddies, but are only able to capture surface dynamics. Conversely, there are many studies that capture detailed, full-depth, observations of a single eddy event, but it is not clear if these observations can be generalized to basin scales. Here, we aim to fill a middle ground between these two approaches. We identify data from historical shipboard casts and profiles (providing physical and biogeochemical variables) that are coincident with mesoscale eddies. Satellite surface chlorophyll, which coupled with the vertical profiles, allows us to construct a three dimensional synthesis of the data using ensemble averaging. We observe significant differences between nutrient profiles in composite cyclonic and anticyclonic eddies, suggesting different growing conditions and microbial production.