The North Pacific is located at east side of the Asian Continent and large ocean occupied about 20-30% of the world ocean. Especially, sub-arctic North Pacific is well known as the highest nutrient concentrations in deep waters in the global ocean and high primary productivity regions, because it is the terminal region for the abyssal circulation. Also known is that this region is as good fishing grounds and important sink for atmospheric CO2. As oceanographic features of North Pacific, sub-tropical gyre and sub-arctic gyre which are surface circulation systems contact with each other at east side of Japan, and deferent water mass including sub-tropical, transition and sub-arctic regions exist between south to north. Western Sub-arctic Gyre is located at west side of North pacific and Alaskan Gyre is east side. It is said that variability of these circulations was closely related to climate change on global scale. Therefore we suggests that North Pacific has a large relation to climate change on global scale and is a key region where the influence on ocean biogeochemical cycles and marine ecosystems is very large, since North Pacific is very large ocean and has various oceanographic features. Recently, satellite remote sensing has been developed rapidly and we can obtain physical parameter in the ocean including insolation, sea surface temperature, sea wind, sea surface height and sea ice distribution and biological parameter related to marine ecosystem such as phytoplankton concentration and primary productivity and so on. Then now it is possible to estimate primary productivity, nitrate concentrations and partial pressure of carbon dioxide using satellite data. Satellite observation is notable as a useful tool to clarify the mechanism of global change, since it can observe wide regions continuously and instantaneously, and capture sea surface phenomena on various temporal and spatial scales.  
To reveal the seasonal and interannual variations of chlorophyll a (chl-a) and primary productivity and understand the relationships between their temporal and spatial variability and physical and chemical processes in the ocean, we have carried out time-series analysis using multi-remotely sensed data (chl-a concentrations, primary productivity, sea surface temperature, sea wind and nitrate concentrations etc.) which can measure the multi-environmental factors simultaneously. Consequently, ocean color imagery clearly showed seasonal and interannual variability in the spatial abundance and distribution of chl-a and primary productivity in the North Pacific. Magnitude of chl-a seasonal variability at western North Pacific is greater than that at eastern North Pacific, and spring bloom at western North Pacific is very clear compared with eastern North Pacific. In contrast, magnitude of chl-a seasonal variability at eastern North Pacific is small, and chl-a concentrations were relatively low (less than 0.5mg m-3) throughout the year. On the other hand,
 
 
 
 
Frontier Newsletter/No.29
FRSGC Index
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