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.
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Famous quotes containing the words ocean and/or colour:
“We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But if that drop was not in the ocean, I think the ocean would be less because of that missing drop. I do not agree with the big way of doing things.”
—Mother Teresa (b. 1910)
“No one knows the colour of a flower
till it is broken.”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)