Ocean colour opportunities from Meteosat Second and Third Generation geostationary platforms

Abstract. Ocean colour applications from medium-resolution polar-orbiting satellite sensors have now matured and evolved into operational services. These applications are enabled by the Sentinel-3 OLCI space sensors of the European Earth Observation Copernicus programme and the VIIRS sensors of the US Joint Polar Satellite System programme. Key drivers for the Copernicus ocean colour services are the national obligations of the EU member states to report on the quality of marine, coastal and inland waters for the EU Water Framework Directive and Marine Strategy Framework Directive. Further applications include CO2 sequestration, carbon cycle and climate, fisheries and aquaculture management, near-real-time alerting to harmful algae blooms, environmental monitoring and forecasting, and assessment of sediment transport in coastal waters. Ocean colour data from polar-orbiting satellite platforms, however, suffer from fractional coverage, primarily due to clouds, and inadequate resolution of quickly varying processes. Ocean colour remote sensing from geostationary platforms can provide significant improvements in coverage and sampling frequency and support new applications and services. EUMETSAT's SEVIRI instrument on the geostationary Meteosat Second Generation platforms (MSG) is not designed to meet ocean colour mission requirements, however, it has been demonstrated to provide valuable contribution, particularly in combination with dedicated ocean colour polar observations. This paper describes the ongoing effort to develop operational ocean colour water turbidity and related products and user services from SEVIRI. SEVIRI's multi-temporal capabilities can benefit users requiring improved local-area coverage and frequent diurnal observations. A survey of user requirements and a study of technical capabilities and limitations of the SEVIRI instruments are the basis for this development and are described in this paper. The products will support monitoring of sediment transport, water clarity, and tidal dynamics by providing hourly coverage and long-term time series of the diurnal observations. Further products and services are anticipated from EUMETSAT's FCI instruments on Meteosat Third Generation satellites (MTG), including potential chlorophyll a products.

[1]  Menghua Wang,et al.  The NIR-SWIR combined atmospheric correction approach for MODIS ocean color data processing. , 2007, Optics express.

[2]  J. Milliman.  Production and accumulation of calcium carbonate in the ocean: Budget of a nonsteady state , 1993 .

[3]  E. Achterberg,et al.  Predominance of heavily calcified coccolithophores at low CaCO3 saturation during winter in the Bay of Biscay , 2012, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[4]  B. Nechad,et al.  Optical Remote Sensing of the North Sea , 2008 .

[5]  B. Håkansson,et al.  Long‐term trends in Secchi depth in the Baltic Sea , 1996 .

[6]  K. Dyer,et al.  Fluxes of suspended matter in the East Anglian plume Southern North Sea , 1998 .

[7]  B. Nechad,et al.  CoastColour Round Robin data sets: a database to evaluate the performance of algorithms for the retrieval of water quality parameters in coastal waters , 2015 .

[8]  P. Holligan,et al.  Remote sensing of coccolithophore blooms , 1987 .

[9]  K. Ruddick,et al.  Turbid wakes associated with offshore wind turbines observed with Landsat 8 , 2014 .

[10]  Kevin Ruddick,et al.  Diurnal variability of turbidity and light attenuation in the southern North Sea from the SEVIRI geostationary sensor , 2012 .

[11]  Piet Stammes,et al.  Inter-calibration of polar imager solar channels using SEVIRI , 2013 .

[12]  B. Nechad,et al.  Mapping total suspended matter from geostationary satellites: a feasibility study with SEVIRI in the Southern North Sea. , 2009, Optics express.

[13]  Roger Proctor,et al.  Predicting the consequences of nutrient reduction on the eutrophication status of the North Sea , 2010 .

[14]  C. McClain,et al.  Evaluation of SeaWiFS, MODIS Terra and MODIS Aqua coverage for studies of phytoplankton diurnal variability , 2009 .

[15]  Menghua Wang,et al.  Effects of ocean surface reflectance variation with solar elevation on normalized water-leaving radiance. , 2006, Applied optics.

[16]  P Jeremy Werdell,et al.  Generalized ocean color inversion model for retrieving marine inherent optical properties. , 2013, Applied optics.

[17]  J. Ryu,et al.  Overview of geostationary ocean color imager (GOCI) and GOCI data processing system (GDPS) , 2012, Ocean Science Journal.

[18]  Chuanmin Hu,et al.  Aquatic color radiometry remote sensing of coastal and inland waters: Challenges and recommendations for future satellite missions , 2015 .

[19]  P. Régnier,et al.  Control of phytoplankton production by physical forcing in a strongly tidal, well-mixed estuary , 2005 .

[20]  J. Bruniquel,et al.  Routine water quality services for the Baltic Sea (GMES MarCoast) , 2008, 2008 IEEE/OES US/EU-Baltic International Symposium.

[21]  Menghua Wang,et al.  Retrieval of water-leaving radiance and aerosol optical thickness over the oceans with SeaWiFS: a preliminary algorithm. , 1994, Applied optics.

[22]  H. Gordon,et al.  Atmospheric correction of ocean-color sensors: effects of the Earth's curvature. , 1994, Applied optics.

[23]  J. Ryu,et al.  Ocean color products from the Korean Geostationary Ocean Color Imager (GOCI). , 2013, Optics express.

[24]  Quinten Vanhellemont,et al.  Challenges and opportunities for geostationary ocean colour remote sensing of regional seas: A review of recent results , 2014 .

[25]  C. Vargas,et al.  Origin and Evolution of Coccolithophores: From Coastal Hunters to Oceanic Farmers , 2007 .

[26]  Jong-Kuk Choi,et al.  GOCI, the world's first geostationary ocean color observation satellite, for the monitoring of temporal variability in coastal water turbidity , 2012 .

[27]  J. Schmetz,et al.  AN INTRODUCTION TO METEOSAT SECOND GENERATION (MSG) , 2002 .

[28]  C. Chen,et al.  Using geostationary satellite ocean color data to map the diurnal dynamics of suspended particulate matter in coastal waters , 2013 .

[29]  Menghua Wang,et al.  Improved near-infrared ocean reflectance correction algorithm for satellite ocean color data processing. , 2014, Optics express.