AVIRIS CALIBRATION AND APPLICATION IN COASTAL OCEANIC ENVIRONMENTS - TRACERS OF SOLUBLE AND PARTICULATE CONSTITUENTS OF THE TAMPA BAY COASTAL PLUME

AVIRIS is a test bed for future spacecraft sensors such as HIRIS and M ODIS planned for the Earth Observing System. Model-derived absorption coefficients at 415 nm, a(415), and back-scattering coefficients at 67 1 nm, b(b)(671) for Tampa Bay waters were used to create images from A VIRIS data of the dissolved component of a(415) due to gelbstoff, a(g) (415), and salinity. Images of a(g)(415), salinity, and b(b)(671) were used to depict the distribution of dissolved and particulate constitu ents, respectively, for Tampa Bay plume during late, ebb-tidal conditi ons. Salinity covaried with a(g)(415), which provided a means of mappi ng salinity from the a(g)(415) imagery. The concentration of suspended particles, as inferred from b(b)(671), was extremely variable in the shallow regions where waves and currents interacted. Pollutants covary ing with fresh water or suspended sediments can be mapped from a(g)(41 5) and b(b)(671) images, respectively.