ESTIMATE OF CHLOROPHYLL CONCENTRATION FROM OCEAN COLOR: UNCERTAINTY ASSOCIATED WITH UNKNOWN BACKSCATTERING

It is backscattering of solar radiation by water body that makes ocean color observable from above, either by airplanes or satellites. Given the very low direct contribution to backscattering by phytoplankton cells, it is curious why the retrieval of phytoplankton concentration from remotely observed ocean color is evidently successful. From semianalytical bio-optical models, a dataset is created of spectral absorption, scattering and backscattering coefficients as a function of chlorophyll concentration. Four scenarios are considered, 1) only molecular and no particle scattering, 2) random particle backscattering uncorrelated with chlorophyll concentration, 3) constrained random particle scattering with known backscattering ratio, and 4) constrained random scattering with random backscattering ratio. Scenario 1 only introduces moderate errors of -20% - 90%. And for scenarios 3 and 4, the errors are largely within 30% and 100%. Scenario 2 introduces the largest errors, with the retrieved chlorophyll concentration virtually uncorrelated with the true values, implying the backscattering must somehow be related to the trophic state. The results of the study suggested These 3 cases confirmed that while it is the absorption by phytoplankton that in large part decides the accuracy of chlorophyll concentration retrieval, for the success of monitoring of global ocean primary productivity we have to improve our knowledge on particle backscattering.