Robust approach to directly measuring water-leaving radiance in the field.

It has been a long-standing goal to precisely measure water-leaving radiance (L(w), or its equivalent property, remote-sensing reflectance) in the field, but reaching this goal is quite a challenge. This is because conventional approaches do not provide a direct measurement of L(w), but rather measure various related components and subsequently derive this core property from these components. Due to many uncontrollable factors in the measurement procedure and imprecise post-measurement processing routines, the resulting L(w) is inherently associated with various levels of uncertainties. Here we present a methodology called the skylight-blocked approach (SBA) to measure L(w) directly in the field, along with results obtained recently in the Laurentian Great Lakes. These results indicate that SBA can measure L(w) in high precision. In particular, there is no limitation of water types for the deployment of SBA, and the requirement of post-measurement processing is minimum; thus high-quality L(w) for a wide range of aquatic environments can be acquired.

Removal of surface-reflected light for the measurement of remote-sensing reflectance from an above-surface platform.

Using hyperspectral measurements made in the field, we show that the effective sea-surface reflectance ρ (defined as the ratio of the surface-reflected radiance at the specular direction corresponding to the downwelling sky radiance from one direction) varies not only for different measurement scans, but also can differ by a factor of 8 between 400 nm and 800 nm for the same scan. This means that the derived water-leaving radiance (or remote-sensing reflectance) can be highly inaccurate if a spectrally constant ρ value is applied (although errors can be reduced by carefully filtering measured raw data). To remove surface-reflected light in field measurements of remote sensing reflectance, a spectral optimization approach was applied, with results compared with those from remote-sensing models and from direct measurements. The agreement from different determinations suggests that reasonable results for remote sensing reflectance of clear blue water to turbid brown water are obtainable from above-surface measurements, even under conditions of high waves.

Application of satellite infrared data for mapping of thermal plume contamination in coastal ecosystem of Korea.

The 5900 MW Younggwang nuclear power station on the west coast of Korea discharges warm water affecting coastal ecology [KORDI report (2003). Wide area observation of the impact of the operation of Younggwang nuclear power plant 5 and 6, No. BSPI 319-00-1426-3, KORDI, Seoul, Korea]. Here the spatial and temporal characteristics of the thermal plume signature of warm water are reported from a time series (1985-2003) of space-borne, thermal infrared data from Landsat and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellites. Sea surface temperature (SST) were characterized using advanced very high resolution radiometer data from the NOAA satellites. These data demonstrated the general pattern and extension of the thermal plume signature in the Younggwang coastal areas. In contrast, the analysis of SST from thematic mapper data using the Landsat-5 and 7 satellites provided enhanced information about the plume shape, dimension and direction of dispersion in these waters. The thermal plume signature was detected from 70 to 100 km to the south of the discharge during the summer monsoon and 50 to 70 km to the northwest during the winter monsoon. The mean detected plume temperature was 28 degrees C in summer and 12 degrees C in winter. The DeltaT varied from 2 to 4 degrees C in winter and 2 degrees C in summer. These values are lower than the re-circulating water temperature (6-9 degrees C). In addition the temperature difference between tidal flats and offshore (SSTtidal flats - SSToffsore) was found to vary from 5.4 to 8.5 degrees C during the flood tides and 3.5 degrees C during the ebb tide. The data also suggest that water heated by direct solar radiation on the tidal flats during the flood tides might have been transported offshore during the ebb tide. Based on these results we suggest that there is an urgent need to protect the health of Younggwang coastal marine ecosystem from the severe thermal impact by the large quantity of warm water discharged from the Younggwang nuclear power plant.