[19-Nov-2015] Dogliotti, A.I., Williams, G., Simionato, C., Lutz, V., Gossn, J.I., and Tropper, I.
Presented at the 2015 Aquarius/SAC-D Science Team MeetingThe Argentine shelf and its shelf-break comprise a large and rich biological area of the ocean. This is one of the widest and flattest continental shelves in the world ocean characterized by the presence of water masses with different properties due to the presence of algal blooms, coastal upwellings, shelf-break and tidal fronts, and river discharges. Remote sensing of ocean color has demonstrated to be a very useful tool for monitoring the marine ecosystem providing near real-time, long-term, synoptic, global estimates of key parameters, such as surface chlorophyll-a (chl-a) concentration. Strong efforts have been recently put in collecting bio-optical data, including radiometric and inherent optical properties measurements. This invaluable and scarce information will help improving atmospheric correction algorithms, as well as validating and calibrating satellite-derived products of current and future ocean colour missions like the Argentinean-Brazilian joint ocean colour satellite mission SABIA/Mar. In this presentation we will show the main results of different bio-optical studies that have been performed in the Argentine Sea. These include the validation of satellite-derived products and algorithms, the development of a general turbidity algorithm, the evaluation of atmospheric correction algorithms in the extreme turbid waters of Río de la Plata river, and primary production modeling using field and remotely sensed data.