Phytoplankton phenology in the Pacific Arctic

My dissertation research focused on phytoplankton phenology based on satellite remote sensing and water samples. Phytoplankton pigments chlorophyll-a and pheophytin were used to observe shifts in bloom cycles in the summer and fall months in the Bering and Chukchi Seas. This work was funded by the National Science Foundation.

Additional aspects of this research including identifying fall blooms and upscaling water-column chlorophyll-a using nadir-viewing technologies were supported by the Edna Bailey Sussman Fund, Association of Polar Early Career Scientists, and the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation.

📷 Lee Cooper & Karen Frey

Results from this work can be found in (Gaffey et al., 2022; Gaffey et al., 2025). Data sets collected can be found at the Arctic Data Center.

📷 Leonard Sussman

References

2025

Environmental factors associated with fall phytoplankton blooms in the northern Bering and Chukchi seas

C. B. Gaffey, K. E. Frey, J. Rogan, and 4 more authors

Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 2025

DOI Bib

@article{gaffey2025environmental,
  title = {Environmental factors associated with fall phytoplankton blooms in the northern Bering and Chukchi seas},
  author = {Gaffey, C. B. and Frey, K. E. and Rogan, J. and Estes, L. and Cooper, L. W. and Clement Kinney, J. and Grebmeier, J. M.},
  journal = {Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans},
  year = {2025},
  volume = {130},
  number = {9},
  pages = {e2025JC022498},
  doi = {10.1029/2025JC022498},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1029/2025JC022498},
}

2022

Phytoplankton bloom stages estimated from chlorophyll pigment proportions suggest delayed summer production in low sea ice years in the northern Bering Sea

C. B. Gaffey, K. E. Frey, L. W. Cooper, and 1 more author

PLOS ONE, 2022

DOI Bib

@article{gaffey2022phytoplankton,
  title = {Phytoplankton bloom stages estimated from chlorophyll pigment proportions suggest delayed summer production in low sea ice years in the northern Bering Sea},
  author = {Gaffey, C. B. and Frey, K. E. and Cooper, L. W. and Grebmeier, J. M.},
  journal = {PLOS ONE},
  year = {2022},
  volume = {17},
  number = {7},
  pages = {e0267586},
  doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0267586},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0267586},
}