Scottish Marine and Freshwater Science Volume 4 Number 1: Annual Cycles of Physical, Chemical and Biological Parameters in Scottish Waters

Objectives

This paper presents summary tables derived from the database described in the previous section. These should prove useful for a variety of purposes, such as examining general conditions in particular sea areas, detailing annual cycles of chemical and biological parameters for comparison with the results of physical and ecological models, and targeting specific enquiries that may be answered using the main database itself. An example of the use of the tables presented here was the characterisation of the various water types in Scottish waters, and their nutrient content, for the 1992 Quality Status Report for submission to the North Sea Task Force. The annual cycles of temperature, salinity and nutrients are also presently being used, together with annual cycles of transports into and around the North Sea, to compute heat, salt and nutrient budgets.