MALTESE FRONT VARIABILITY FROM SATELLITE-OBSERVATIONS BASED ON AUTOMATED DETECTION

Maltese Front location statistics are obtained from multichannel sea-s urface temperature (MCSST) images, derived from Advanced Very High Res olution Radiometer (AVHRR) observations of the Mediterranean Sea durin g March 3 through September 27, 1993, The statistics are based on semi automated determinations of the Front's sea-surface temperature surfac e expression, Expert analyses from the Naval Oceanographic Office give an accuracy check, Expert techniques are largely manual, labor-intens ive, subjective, and skill-dependent; therefore, automation could be b eneficial. A mathematical morphology-based method successfully delinea tes the Front. it finds the temperature gradients most likely to be th e Front's and presents the corresponding segmentations to the operator . The method was developed to find stars in astronomical images, and h as successfully analyzed solar magnetograms and satellite Gulf Stream images, Rings, fronts, and sunspots are not star-like, but simple prep rocessing adapts the technique to these problem domains, This work con stitutes another successful application, The success in ''moving'' the technique is encouraging, The Maltese Front's thermal gradients are 5 -10 times weaker than the Gulf Stream North Wall's, yet the method pro duces useful results, and it may work in other regions.