Ocean Color - Ocean Colour Radiometry

Ocean Colour Radiometry

Ocean colour radiometry is a technology, and a discipline of research, concerning the study of the interaction between the visible electromagnetic radiation coming from the sun and aquatic environments. In general, the term is used in the context of remote-sensing observations, often made from Earth-orbiting satellites. Using sensitive radiometers, such as those on-board satellite platforms, one can measure carefully the wide array of colors emerging out of the ocean. These measurements can be used to infer important information such as phytoplankton biomass or concentrations of other living and non-living material that modify the characteristics of the incoming radiation. Monitoring the spatial and temporal variability of algal blooms from satellite, over large marine regions up to the scale of the global ocean, has been instrumental in characterizing variability of marine ecosystems and is a key tool for research into how marine ecosystems respond to climate change and anthropogenic perturbations.

Read more about this topic:  Ocean Color

Famous quotes containing the words ocean and/or colour:

    I am no Poet here; my pen ‘s the spout,
    Where the rain water of my eyes run out,
    In pity of that name, whose fate wee see
    Thus copied out in griefs Hydrography:
    The Muses are not Mer-maids, though upon
    His death the Ocean might turn Helicon
    John Cleveland (1613–1658)

    There’s no man may look upon her, no man,
    As when newly grown to be a woman,
    Tall and noble but with face and bosom
    Delicate in colour as apple blossom.
    William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)