Retrieval of chlorophyll from remote-sensing reflectance in the China seas

The East China Sea is a typical case 2 water environment, where concentrati ons of phytoplankton pigments, suspended matter, and chromophoric dissolved organic matter (CDOM) are all higher than those in the open oceans, becaus e of the discharge from the Yangtze River and the Yellow River. By using a hyperspectral semianalytical model, we simulated a set of remote-sensing re flectance for a variety of chlorophyll, suspended matter, and CDOM concentr ations. From this simulated data set, a new algorithm for the retrieval of chlorophyll concentration from remote-sensing reflectance is proposed. For this method, we took into account the 682-nm spectral channel in addition t o the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS) channels. When this a lgorithm was applied to a field data set, the chlorophyll concentrations re trieved through the new algorithm were consistent with field measurements t o within a small error of 18%, in contrast with that of 147% between the Se aWiFS ocean chlorophyll 2 algorithm and the in situ observation. (C) 2000 O ptical Society of America OCIS codes: 010.4450, 280.0280.