Optical closure in marine waters from in situ inherent optical property measurements

Lefering, Katharina and Bengil, Fethi and Trees, Charles and Röttgers, Rüdiger and Bowers, David and Nimmo-Smith, Alex and Schwarz, Jill and McKee, David (2016) Optical closure in marine waters from in situ inherent optical property measurements. Optics Express, 24 (13). pp. 14036-14052. ISSN 1094-4087 (https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.24.014036)

[thumbnail of Lefering-etal-OE2016-Optical-closure-in-marine-waters-from-in-situ-inherent-optical-property-measurements]
Preview
 Text. Filename: Lefering_etal_OE2016_Optical_closure_in_marine_waters_from_in_situ_inherent_optical_property_measurements.pdf
Accepted Author Manuscript
Download (1MB)| Preview

Abstract

Optical closure using radiative transfer simulations can be used to determine the consistency of in situ measurements of inherent optical properties (IOPs) and radiometry. Three scattering corrections are applied to in situ absorption and attenuation profile data for a range of coastal and oceanic waters, but are found to have only very limited impact on subsequent closure attempts for these stations. Best-fit regressions on logtransformed measured and modelled downwards irradiance, Ed, and upwards radiance, Lu, profiles have median slopes between 0.92-1.24, revealing a tendency to underestimate Ed and Lu with depth. This is only partly explained by non-inclusion of fluorescence emission from CDOM and chlorophyll in the simulations. There are several stations where multiple volume scattering function related data processing steps perform poorly which suggests the potential existence of unresolved features in the modelling of the angular distribution of scattered photons. General optical closure therefore remains problematic, even though there are many cases in the data set where the match between measured and modelled radiometric data is within 25% RMS%E. These results are significant for applications that rely on optical closure e.g. assimilating ocean colour data into coupled physical-ecosystem models.

  • Item type:Article
    ID code:57572
    Dates:
    Date
    Event
    27 June 2016
    Published
    28 May 2016
    Accepted
    Notes:© 2016 Optical Society of America. One print or electronic copy may be made for personal use only. Systematic reproduction and distribution, duplication of any material in this paper for a fee or for commercial purposes, or modifications of the content of this paper are prohibited.
    Subjects:Science > Physics > Optics. Light
    Department:Faculty of Science > Physics
    Depositing user: Pure Administrator
    Date deposited:29 Aug 2016 10:59
    Last modified:08 Apr 2024 23:11
    Related URLs:
    URI:https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/id/eprint/57572
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)