Comparison between MERIS and Regional High-Level Products in European Seas

Standard ocean color data products from the Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) are compared with equivalent regional products determined for European seas exhibiting different bio-optical properties: the northern Adriatic Sea, the Baltic Sea and the Western Black Sea (ADRS, BLTS and BLKS, respectively). Investigated quantities are those relevant to optically complex waters: 1) the algal-2 pigment index, alg2; 2) the composite absorption coefficient of yellow substance and non-pigmented particles at 442nm, adg; and 3) the concentration of Total Suspended Matter TSM. Regional data products are created using Multi Layer Perceptron (MLP) neural nets trained with field measurements from the Coastal Atmosphere and Sea Time Series (CoASTS) and Bio-Optical mapping of Marine Properties (BiOMaP) programs. Remote sensing reflectance RRS determined at selected subsets of center-wavelengths are applied for different water types in view of minimizing the perturbing effects of inaccurate atmospheric correction on the retrieval of data products. A new method is also presented and used to control the applicability range of regional MLPs. Comparison results are consistent across the investigated European seas. Specifically, MERIS alg2 values overestimate the output of regional algorithms. The agreement between MERIS TSM and regional products is significantly better than that reported for alg2 and adg, especially for BLKS data. These findings indicate the relevance of using regional bio-optical algorithms to assess standard products as a complement to match-up analysis relying on pairs of in situ and satellite data.

D'ALIMONTE Davide;  ZIBORDI Giuseppe;  KAJIYAMA Tamito;  BERTHON Jean-Francois; 

2013-11-12

ELSEVIER SCIENCE INC

JRC80274

0034-4257,   

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0034425713002411,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC80274,   

10.1016/j.rse.2013.07.029,