CIRFA seminar (30 March): Ocean Color Remote Sensing

MODIS Terra from July 6, 2016 over the Barents Sea. ImageCredit: NASA (Jeff Schmaltz and Joshua Stevens, LANCE/EOSDIS Rapid Response) — Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Terra satellite on July 6, 2016, the acquired this image of a phytoplankton bloom in the Barents Sea. Image Credit: NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz and Joshua Stevens, LANCE/EOSDIS Rapid Response

CIRFA is organizing a longer seminar on ocean remote sensing with 3 invited speakers. The seminar will be extended from normal 1 hours to 1 hour and 45 minutes. The approximate seminar structure will be as follows:

14:00-14:20: Atsushi Matsouka (University of New Hampshire and UiT): Tracking permafrost leaks to the Arctic coastal waters from space

Arctic rivers operate as integrators of northern high latitude regions, where large stocks of soil organic carbon (OC) are currently experiencing rapid warming. Here I show that tracking total OC in the Mackenzie Delta whose upstream catchment is underlain by permafrost soils is now possible using polar-orbiting satellite ocean color observations with confidence. A non-parametric trend analysis that is valid for hydrological data shows a significant increase in dissolved OC (DOC) as well as particulate OC (POC) concentrations in late summer. Uncertainties of the satellite estimates of DOC and POC did not influence our results. These concentration increases are not related to changes in river discharge. Parallel increases of independent long-term (1979-2018) in situ measurements of thaw depth of the active layer, as well as meteorological and hydrological data suggest that these late summer increases can likely be explained by increasing inputs of permafrost OC. This study shows great promise for remote, large-scale detection of catchment-scale thaw impacts from space.

14:20-14:30: Time for questions

14:30-14:40: Maycira Costa (University of Victoria): Ferry-based autonomous above-water reflectance: From system installation and data quality to satellite validation, phytoplankton groups and phenology, and bioregionalization

14:40-14:50: Time for questions

14:50-15:10: Ewa Kwiatkowska (EUMETSAT): Operational Ocean Colour data services – product requirements and ongoing improvements

Ocean Colour is the only space measurement which observes living aquatic ecosystems. Ocean Colour applications include monitoring and prediction of water quality, marine resources, and climate. Nevertheless, the Ocean Colour measurement is very complex, the water signal is typically a fraction of the top-of-the-atmosphere satellite observation. Ocean Colour therefore is highly demanding with respect to satellite instrument specifications and it requires the highest quality instrument calibration as well as processing algorithms. This presentation will focus on operational space missions dedicated to Ocean Colour: Sentinel-3 OLCI from the European Commission’s Copernicus Programme. The presentation will address some the Ocean Colour instrument and product requirements as well as ongoing algorithm developments.

15:10-15:20: Time for questions

15:20-15:45 General discussion with all speakers on the topic of Ocean Color Remote Sensing

You are very welcome to join us in person or online on this MS Teams link for Thursday 30 March 2023 14:00-15:45.