Motoaki Kishino

Temporal and Spatial Variability of Phytoplankton Pigment Concentrations in the Japan Sea Derived from CZCS Images

Temporal and spatial variability of phytoplankton pigment concentrations in the Japan Sea are described, using monthly mean composite images of the Coastal Zone Color Scanner (CZCS). In order to describe the seasonal changes of pigment concentration from the results of the empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis, we selected four areas in the south Japan Sea. The pigment concentrations in these areas show remarkable seasonal variations. Two annual blooms appear in spring and fall. The spring bloom starts in the Japan Sea in February and March, when critical depth (CRD) becomes equal to mixed layer depth (MLD). The spring bloom in the southern areas (April) occurs one month in advance of that in the northern areas (May). This indicates that the pigment concentrations in the southern areas may increase rapidly in comparison with the northern areas since the water temperature increases faster in spring in the southern than in the northern areas. The fall bloom appears first in the southwest region, then in the southeast and northeast regions, finally appearing in the northwest region. Fall bloom appears in November and December when MLD becomes equal to CRD. The fall bloom can be explained by deepening of MLD in the Japan Sea. The pigment concentrations in winter are higher than those in summer. The low pigment concentrations dominate in summer.

Contribution of Raman scattering to upward irradiance in the sea

Measurements of underwater irradiance revealed that the vertical attenuance in upward irradiance for wavelengths above 520 nm decreased with increasing depth, while the attenuance in the remaining wavelength region and also the attenuance in the downward irradiance in the whole wavelength range kept almost constant values. In this paper, it is suggested that the decrease in the attenuance for the upward irradiance above 520 nm can be ascribed to the Raman scattering of water molecules excited by the intense blue-green light in the downward irradiance.The pure water Raman scattering function at a scattering angle of 90° is measured and the results are used for the theoretical computation of upward irradiance generated by Raman scattering. Then, the difference between observed upward irradiance and the upward irradiance obtained by extrapolation from that in the shallow layers is computed under the assumption of constant irradiance attenuance. Since this difference is expected to represent the upward irradiance generated by Raman scattering, its value is compared with the upward irradiance due to Raman scattering obtained by theoretical computation. The similarity between the two upward irradiances so evaluated supports the view that Raman scattering makes a significant contribution to upward irradiance in the longer wavelength region.

OPTIMIZATION OF THE ADVANCED EARTH OBSERVING SATELLITE II GLOBAL IMAGER CHANNELS BY USE OF RADIATIVE TRANSFER CALCULATIONS

The channel specifications of the Global Imager onboard the Advanced Earth Observing Satellite II have been determined by extensive numerical experiments. The results show that there is an optimum feasible position for each ocean color channel. The bandwidth of the 0.763-microm channel should be less than 10 nm for good sensitivity to the cloud top height and geometric thickness of the cloud layer; a 40-nm bandwidth is suitable for the 1.38-microm channel to have the strongest contrast between cloudy and clear radiance with a sufficient radiant energy; and a 3.7-microm channel is better than a 3.95-microm channel for estimation of the sea surface temperature (SST) and determination of the cloud particle size when the bandwidth of the channel is 0.33 microm. A three-wavelength combination of 6.7, 7.3, and 7.5 microm is an optimized choice for water vapor profiling. The combination of 8.6, 10.8, and 12.0 microm is suitable for cloud microphysics and SST retrievals with the split-window technique.

Chlorophyll - Specific Absorption Coefficients and Pigments of Phytoplankton off Sanriku, Northwestern North Pacific

The variety in shape and magnitude of thein vivo chlorophyll-specific absorption spectra of phytoplankton was investigated in relation to differences in pigment composition off Sanriku, northwestern North Pacific. Site-to-site variations of the absorption coefficients,aph* (λ), and pigment composition were clearly observed. At warm-streamer stations, higher values ofaph* (440) andaph* (650) were found with relatively high concentrations of chlorophyllb (a green algae marker). At stations located in the Oyashio water (cold streamer),aph* (440) values were lower and fucoxanthin (a diatom marker) concentrations were higher, compared to the other stations. The peak in the absorption spectra at the Oyashio stations was shifted toward shorter wavelengths, which was probably due to the presence of phaeopigments. In a Kuroshio warm-core ring, the magnitude ofaph* (440) was in between those at the warm-streamer and Oyashio stations, and the diagnostic pigment was peridinin (a dinoflagellate marker). These findings indicated that major differences in phytoplankton absorption spectra of each water mass were a result of differences in the phytoplankton pigment composition of each water mass, which was probably related to the phytoplankton community.

In-Water Algorithms for ADEOS/OCTS

AbstractIn-water algorithms for OCTS standard products were developed using in situ data and installed for operationally processing at NASDA/EOC. This paper describes the in-water algorithms Version 1.0 for chlorophylla concentration, pigment concentration, and attenuation coefficient at a wavelength of 490 nm. The selected OCTS standard algorithms (Ver. 1.0) are as follows:

Phytoplankton Pigment Distributions in Regional Upwelling around the Izu Peninsula Detected by Coastal Zone Color Scanner on May 1982

Chl = 0.2818 \left( {\frac{{L4 + L5}}{{L3}}} \right)^{3.497 }