Software for Use in Calculation
of Primary Production in the Oceanic Water Column
by Trevor Platt and
Shubha Sathyendranath.
Biological Oceanography Division, Bedford Institute of Oceanography, Box 1006,
Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada, B2Y 4A2
The Software and User Manual for calculating oceanic primary production by a variety
of methods,
including those based on remotely-sensed data, may be downloaded here. The basic unit of
calculation is the daily production on a spatial scale determined
by the input data. For example, the methods described here are
suitable for use in basin-scale production estimates using a
combination of satellite and shipboard observations.
The methods behind the algorithms have already been published
in the open literature. There is, however, a large gap between the formal description
of a method and a practical implementation. The purpose of the current document
is to provide such an implementation.
Users are kindly requested to acknowledge the authors in
publications resulting from use of these programs.
Note:
This program is designed for use on PC's running MS Windows.
We strongly recommend that you print and/or refer to the read_me file before you install the program.
Software
To install the program:
- download the new_opp.zip file into a folder on your hard disk
- unzip the file
- double-click on the setup.exe file.
User manual
The User Manual contains the Primary Production Handbook,
and Documentation for 6 programs used in the calculation of primary production. These documents
are available in .pdf format.
Primary Production Handbook
(29 pages)
This document describes the methods and software used for
the calculation of oceanic primary production and related properties. It contains
the Table of Contents, plus the following chapters: Introduction, Input Data,
Algorithms, Implementation Notes, Bibliography, Appendix A and Appendix B
Non-linear Parameter Estimation (11 pages)
This document provides examples and guidance for estimating
some of the input parameters required for the production calculations.
Surface Irradiance (7 pages)
This document describes the program I0 which
computes the surface irradiance.
Average Pigment Concentration (9 pages)
This document describes the program AVGC which
computes the average pigment concentration for a layer.
Daily, Water-Column Production by Analytic Solution
(8 pages)
This document describes the program DWCPA which
computes an analytic approximation to the daily, water-column
production.
Daily, Water-Column Production by Empirical
Estimators (7 pages)
This document describes the program DWCPE which
computes various empirical estimators of daily, water-column
production. These estimates are provided for historical interest; the
other programs in the package will be more suitable for most purposes.
Daily, Water-Column Production by Numerical
Approximation (9 pages)
This document describes the program DWCPN which
computes a numerical approximation to the daily, water-column
production.