Technical note An efficient algorithm for estimating chlorophyll from Coastal Zone Color Scanner data

Abstract Image-processing systems based on microcomputers are now widely available. At the same time, interest in processing archived Coastal Zone Color Scanner (CZCS) data continues to grow. However, procedures for obtaining chlorophyll estimates from CZCS raw counts often make extensive use of trigonometric and exponential functions and are computationally expensive. The algorithm outlined here uses spline interpolation, ‘look-up’ tables and a mathematical transformation to implement accurately a chlorophyll-estimation procedure while reducing the computational load to a level appropriate to microcomputers. This algorithm may also be of interest to those planning real-time processing of global data sets from future ocean-colour scanners.

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