Comparison of Chlorophyll and Suspended Sediment Algorithm for SeaWiFS around the East China Sea and Yellow Sea

Abstract

The East China Sea (ECS) and Yellow Sea (YS) have a multiple characteristics. For instance, the northwest part of the ECS and coastal areas of the YS have typical CASE-II water characteristics. In contrast, the northeast part of the ECS (South part of Jeju Island) and middle area of the YS have typical CASE-I water characteristics. The northwest part of the ECS shows the most high turbid environment (about 1,000 g/m3 maximum) receiving a large quantity of land-based materials including nutrients through one of the world’s largest river, namely the Yangtze River (He et al., 2000; Yang et al., 2003). It includes a vast and well-developed continental shelf to the northwest, receiving source of energy and material from Kuroshio, which flows from the south to the northeast along the continental slope of the ECS (Nitani, 1972; Lie et al., 2002). Contrastively the northeast part of the ECS appears to be the clearest environment (below 1 g/m3). Because of this complex situation, we need an improved algorithm for these sea areas. Thus, in this study, we improved our ocean color algorithm for chlorophyll and suspended sediment using measurements data collected by the Japan, China and Korea research groups. We compared our enhanced algorithm with the other popular ones developed for SeaWiFS.