Evaluation of MERIS products from Baltic Sea coastal waters rich in CDOM

Abstract. In this study, retrievals of the medium resolution imaging spectrometer (MERIS) reflectances and water quality products using four different coastal processing algorithms freely available are assessed by comparison against sea-truthing data. The study is based on a pair-wise comparison using processor-dependent quality flags for the retrieval of valid common macro-pixels. This assessment is required in order to ensure the reliability of monitoring systems based on MERIS data, such as the Swedish coastal and lake monitoring system ( http://vattenkvalitet.se ). The results show that the pre-processing with the Improved Contrast between Ocean and Land (ICOL) processor, correcting for adjacency effects, improves the retrieval of spectral reflectance for all processors. Therefore, it is recommended that the ICOL processor should be applied when Baltic coastal waters are investigated. Chlorophyll was retrieved best using the FUB (Free University of Berlin) processing algorithm, although overestimations in the range 18–26.5%, dependent on the compared pairs, were obtained. At low chlorophyll concentrations (

[1]  L. Vilas,et al.  Neural network estimation of chlorophyll a from MERIS full resolution data for the coastal waters of Galician rias (NW Spain) , 2011 .

[2]  A. Stigebrandt.  Physical Oceanography of the Baltic Sea , 2001 .

[3]  H. Siegel,et al.  Validation of MERIS Level‐2 products in the Baltic Sea, the Namibian coastal area and the Atlantic Ocean , 2007 .

[4]  M. Conkright,et al.  Global seasonal climatologies of ocean chlorophyll: Blending in situ and satellite data for the Coastal Zone Color Scanner era , 2001 .

[5]  L. Prieur,et al.  An optical classification of coastal and oceanic waters based on the specific spectral absorption curves of phytoplankton pigments, dissolved organic matter, and other particulate materials1 , 1981 .

[6]  Mariano Bresciani,et al.  Validation of MERIS bio-optical products with in situ data in the turbid Lithuanian Baltic Sea coastal waters , 2012 .

[7]  Carsten Brockmann,et al.  Development of MERIS lake water algorithms: validation results from Europe , 2008 .

[8]  A. Borges.  Do we have enough pieces of the jigsaw to integrate CO2 fluxes in the coastal ocean? , 2005 .

[9]  Roland Doerffer,et al.  Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document (ATBD) , 2008 .

[10]  K. Ruddick,et al.  In situ determination of the remote sensing reflectance : an inter comparison , 2012 .

[11]  S. V. Cristinat,et al.  Assessment of Water-Leaving Reflectances of Oceanic and Coastal Waters Using MERIS Satellite Products off the Southwest Coast of Portugal , 2009 .

[12]  D. Stramski,et al.  An evaluation of MODIS and SeaWiFS bio-optical algorithms in the Baltic Sea , 2004 .

[13]  K. Carder,et al.  Reflectance Model for Quantifying Chlorophyll- a in the Presence of Productivity Degradation Products , 1991 .

[14]  Tiit Kutser,et al.  Mapping coloured dissolved organic matter concentration in coastal waters , 2009 .

[15]  G. Zibordi,et al.  Assessment of MERIS ocean color data products for European seas , 2013 .

[16]  J. Hölemann,et al.  OCOC: From Ocean Colour to Organic Carbon , 2010 .

[17]  Tinglu Zhang.  Retrieval of Oceanic Constituents with Artificial Neural Network Based on Radiative Transfer Simulation Techniques , 2003 .

[18]  K. Sørensen,et al.  An intercomparison of in vitro chlorophyll a determinations for MERIS level 2 data validation , 2007 .

[19]  R. Doerffer,et al.  MERIS potential for coastal zone applications , 1999 .

[20]  L. Prieur,et al.  Analysis of variations in ocean color1 , 1977 .

[21]  D. Siegel,et al.  The global distribution and dynamics of chromophoric dissolved organic matter. , 2013, Annual review of marine science.

[22]  A. Lindfors,et al.  MERIS Case II water processor comparison on coastal sites of the northern Baltic Sea , 2013 .

[23]  Tiit Kutser,et al.  Comparison of different satellite sensors in detecting cyanobacterial bloom events in the Baltic Sea , 2006 .

[24]  Timothy R. Parsons,et al.  A manual of chemical and biological methods for seawater analysis , 1984 .

[25]  F. Chavez,et al.  Two models for absorption by coloured dissolved organic matter (CDOM) , 2002 .

[26]  Roland Doerffer,et al.  Atmospheric correction algorithm for MERIS above case‐2 waters , 2007 .

[27]  Dariusz Stramski,et al.  The role of seawater constituents in light backscattering in the ocean , 2004 .

[28]  Alexander A Gilerson,et al.  Algorithms for remote estimation of chlorophyll-a in coastal and inland waters using red and near infrared bands. , 2010, Optics express.

[29]  W. Maslowski,et al.  Circulation of the Baltic Sea and its connection to the Pan-Arctic region - a large scale and high-resolution modeling approach , 2002 .

[30]  Carsten Brockmann,et al.  Using MERIS full resolution data to monitor coastal waters : A case study from Himmerfjärden, a fjord-like bay in the northwestern Baltic Sea , 2008 .

[31]  Davide D'Alimonte,et al.  Regional Algorithms for European Seas: A Case Study Based on MERIS Data , 2013, IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters.

[32]  T. Schroeder,et al.  Retrieval of atmospheric and oceanic properties from MERIS measurements: A new Case‐2 water processor for BEAM , 2007 .

[33]  R. Doerffer,et al.  The MERIS Case 2 water algorithm , 2007 .

[34]  P. Tett,et al.  Using bio-optics to investigate the extent of coastal waters: A Swedish case study , 2009, Hydrobiologia.

[35]  G. F. Humphrey,et al.  New spectrophotometric equations for determining chlorophylls a, b, c1 and c2 in higher plants, algae and natural phytoplankton , 1975 .

[36]  R. Elmgren.  Understanding human impact on the Baltic ecosystem: changing views in recent decades. , 2001 .

[37]  Susanne Kratzer,et al.  Improvement of MERIS level 2 products in Baltic Sea coastal areas by applying the Improved Contrast between Ocean and Land processor (ICOL) - data analysis and validation , 2010 .

[38]  T. Parsons,et al.  A practical handbook of seawater analysis , 1968 .

[39]  Piotr Kowalczuk,et al.  Modeling absorption by CDOM in the Baltic Sea from season, salinity and chlorophyll , 2006 .

[40]  Anatoly A. Gitelson,et al.  Estimation of chlorophyll-a concentration in case II waters using MODIS and MERIS data—successes and challenges , 2009 .

[41]  P. J. Werdell,et al.  A multi-sensor approach for the on-orbit validation of ocean color satellite data products , 2006 .

[42]  Tiit Kutser,et al.  Quantitative detection of chlorophyll in cyanobacterial blooms by satellite remote sensing , 2004 .

[43]  T. Söderqvist,et al.  Participatory Social-Ecological Modeling in Eutrophication Management : the Case of Himmerfjarden, Sweden , 2011 .

[44]  K. Myrberg,et al.  Physical Oceanography of the Baltic Sea , 2009 .