Ocean Colour Theory And Applications In A Decade Of Czcs Experience

Optical remote sensing is of invaluable help in understanding the marine environment and its biogeochemical and physical processes. The Coastal Zone Color Scanner (CZCS), which operated on board the Nimbus-7 satellite from late 1978 to early 1986, has been the main source of ocean colour data. Much work has been devoted to CZCS data processing and analysis techniques throughout the 1980s. After a decade of experience, the Productivity of the Global Ocean (PGO) Activity - which was established in the framework of the International Space Year 1992 (ISY '92) by SAFISY, the Space Agency Forum of ISY - sponsored a workshop aimed at providing a reference in ocean colour science and at promoting the full exploitation of the CZCS historical data in the field of biological oceanography. The present volume comprises a series of state-of-the-art contributions on theory, applications and future perspectives of ocean colour. After an introduction on the historical perspective of ocean colour, a number of articles are devoted to the CZCS theoretical background, on radiative transfer and in-water topics, as well as on calibration, atmospheric correction and pigment concentration retrieval algorithms developed for the CZCS. Further, a review is given of major applications of CZCS data around the world, carried out in the past decade. The following part of the book is centered on the application of ocean colour to the assessment of marine biological information, with particular regard to plankton biomass, primary productivity and the coupling of physical/biological models. The links between global oceanic production and climate dynamics are also addressed. Finally, the last section is devoted to future approaches and goals of ocean colour science, and to planned sensors and systems. The book is required reading for those involved in ocean colour and related disciplines, providing an overview of the current status in this field as well as stimulating the debate on new ideas and developments for upcoming ocean colour missions.

Aquatic systems play a salient role in the complex processes of energy and matter exchange between the geosphere and the atmosphere. For example, reactions taking place in cloud water droplets can substantially alter the atmospheric budget and chemistry of trace gases; pollution induced weathering reactions at water/soil interfaces can affect the availability of nutrients and increase the concentration of potentially toxic metals in groundwaters. Moreover, the inextricable links between the water cycle, the geosphere and the atmosphere ensure that apparently localized environmental problems have increasingly impacts in other parts of the world. To identify local-to-global scale variables associated with environmental changes, a focus must be placed on the recognition of processes, rather than a continued reliance on monitoring state variables. However, in heterogeneous aquatic systems, small scale aspects of a process under observation may not be summed directly to obtain regional estimates because of process nonlinearities with change in scale. To understand this, the integrated use of measurements across a range of scales is required.

A wide variety of marginal basins, ranging from polar to equatorial regions, and a few sizeable enclosed basins, can all be included among the Asian Seas. The Arctic Ocean shelf seas off Siberia; the sheltered basins along the Pacific Ocean’s western rim; the coastal seas of the northernmost Indian Ocean, including the semi-enclosed Red Sea and Persian Gulf; the Caspian Sea, the remnants of the Aral Sea and a score of brackish or freshwater lakes, such as Lake Balkhash and Lake Baykal; all exhibit a multiplicity of environmental features and processes. Understanding the peculiarities of such a large and varied collection of marine and coastal types requires integrated observation systems, among which orbital remote sensing must play an essential role. This volume reviews the current potential of Earth Observations in assessing the many Asian seascapes, using both passive and active techniques in diverse spectral regions, such as measuring reflected visible and near-infrared sunlight and surface emissions in the thermal infrared and microwave range, or surface reflection of transmitted radar pulses in the microwave range. An in-depth evaluation of the available spectral regions and observation techniques, as well as of novel multi-technique methods, ensures that suitable tools are indeed accessible for exploring and managing the wealth of resources that the Asian Seas have to offer.

A variety of biophysical applications (e.g. leaf area index and gross primary productivity) have been derived from measurements of the Earth system obtained remotely by NASA’s MODIS sensors and other satellite platforms. In Biophysical Applications of Satellite Remote Sensing, the authors describe major applications of satellite remote sensing for studying Earth's biophysical phenomena. The focus of the book lies on the broad palette of specific applications (metrics) of biophysical activity derived using satellite remote sensing. With in-depth discussions of satellite-derived biophysical metrics that focus specifically on theory, methodology, validation, major findings, and directions of future research, this book provides an excellent resource for remote sensing specialists, ecologists, geographers, biologists, climatologists, and environmental scientists.

To all those sailors / Who dreamed before us / Of another way to sail the oceans. The dedication of this Volume is meant to recall, and honour, the bold pioneers of ocean exploration, ancient as well as modern. As a marine scientist, dealing with the oceans through the complex tools, ?lters and mechanisms of contemporary research, I have always wondered what it was like, in centuries past, to look at that vast ho- zon with the naked eye, not knowing what was ahead, and yet to sail on. I have tried to imagine what ancient sailors felt, when “the unknown swirls around and engulfs the mind”, as a forgotten author simply described the brave, perhaps reckless, act of facing such a hostile, menacing and yet fascinating adventure. Innovation has always been the key element, I think, for their success: another way, a better way, a more effective, safer and worthier way was the proper answer to the challenge. The map of our world has been changed time and again, from the geographical as well as the social, economic and scienti?c points of view, by the new discoveries of those sailors. One of the positive qualities of human beings is without doubt the inborn desire to expand their horizons, to see what lies beyond, to learn and understand.

This volume contains the proceedings from the COSPAR Colloquium on "Space Remote Sensing of Subtropical Oceans" which took place between 12 and 16 September, 1996, at the Institute of Oceanography of the National Taiwan University. Included are contributions addressing the issue, from scientific points of views, of why the first scientific satellite of Taiwan, ROCSAT-1, should be equipped with the Ocean Colour Imager (OCI) for oceanographic investigations.