Using Visible Range Imaging Spectrometers To Map Ocean Phenomena

Recent developments in remote sensing technology using 2 dimensional array detectors have resulted in a growing family of sensors called imaging spectrometers. Two instruments built in Canada have the very high spectral resolution and sensitivity required to image water colour variations due to such phenomena as the blue-green absorption of certain fish and of marine plants; and the solar stimulated in vivo fluorescence from the chlorophyll pigment molecule. This paper briefly describes the Fluorescence Line Imager (FLI), built in 1983 for the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans, and a smaller, more flexible, second generation instrument called the Compact Airborne Spectrographic Imager (CASI), first tested in the summer of 1988. Examples of spectral and spatial image data over a number of different targets are shown and the use of this technology for mapping coastal sites is discussed.