Browsing by Author "Ruddick, Kevin"

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    Optical remote sensing in support of eutrophication monitoring in the southern North Sea.
    (European Association of Remote Sensing Laboratories (EARSeL)., 2004) De Cauwer, Vera; Ruddick, Kevin; Park, Young-Je; Nechad, Bouchra; Kyramarios, Michael
    Spring mean and maximum chlorophyll a (chl a) concentrations are main factors to determine the eutrophication status of the Belgian waters as agreed within OSPAR in 2002. Other important assessment parameters to measure the degree of nutrient enrichment - the amounts of inorganic phosphate and nitrogen in winter - appeared to be above thresholds for most measurements performed in the period 1974-2002. As the standard in situ monitoring programme does not give a clear picture of the temporal and spatial distribution of chl a, it is logical to complement these measurements with optical remote sensing. However, chlorophyll concentrations derived from sensors such as SeaWiFS are unreliable in the Case 2 waters of this region because of high particulate and dissolved yellow substance absorption. Another important limitation of ocean colour sensors is the amount of useful images due to cloud cover. The combination of data from different ocean colour sensors in order to enable a better temporal coverage might be hampered by the different chlorophyll retrieval algorithms used. This study compares different global chl a algorithms (MODIS, SeaWiFS, MERIS) as well as a turbid water algorithm for the Southern North Sea. This is done by running the different algorithms on in situ reflectance spectra collected at 107 stations in the period 2001-2002 over the Southern North Sea and comparing them with in situ chl a concentrations, as well as by running the algorithms on a MERIS image of the 29th of July 2002. Based on this validation the accuracy of these products and their suitability for eutrophication monitoring in the Southern North Sea are assessed.
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    Seaborne measurements of near infrared water-leaving reflectance: The similarity spectrum for turbid waters.
    (American Society of Luminology and Oceanography, 2006) Ruddick, Kevin; De Cauwer, Vera; Park, Young-Je; Moore, Gerald
    Theory and seaborne measurements are presented for the near infrared (NIR: 700–900 nm) water-leaving reflectance in turbid waters. According to theory, the shape of the NIR spectrum is determined largely by pure water absorption and is thus almost invariant. A ‘‘similarity’’ NIR reflectance spectrum is defined by normalization at 780 nm. This spectrum is calculated from seaborne reflectance measurements and is compared with that derived from laboratory water absorption measurements. Factors influencing the shape of the similarity spectrum are analyzed theoretically and by radiative transfer simulations. These simulations show that the similarity spectrum is valid for waters ranging from moderately turbid (e.g., water-leaving reflectance at 780 nm of order 1024 or total suspended matter concentration of order 0.3 g m23) to extremely turbid (e.g., reflectance at 780 nm of order 1021 or total suspended matter of order 200 g m23). Measurement uncertainties are analyzed, and the air-sea interface correction is shown to be critical for low reflectances. Applications of the NIR similarity spectrum to atmospheric correction of ocean color data and to the quality control of seaborne, airborne, and spaceborne reflectance measurements in turbid waters are outlined.