Some features of Korean Seas observed by ADEOS/OCTS

The chlorophyll-a concentration measured by OCTS could be used for observing the physical phenomena such as eddies, fronts, and up welling in the oceans as well as for studying the ecology of phytoplankton. In this study, biological and physical features in the East Sea/Japan Sea (the East Sea) and the Yellow Sea observed by OCTS are analyzed in comparison with other satellite data. And in situ chlorophyll data were compared with OCTS Level 2 chlorophyll data. There was a striking correspondence between the satellite chlorophyll structure and other satellite data in the East Sea in the spring. Very complicated ring structures in the 557 are reflected in chlorophyll structure. In the Yellow Sea, the surface structure was rather simple. While the discrepancies between in situ and OCTS algorithm version 3 chlorophyll were small in the East Sea, those for the Yellow Sea were rather big. Comparison with CZCS data for similar time of the year (May-June) shows that OCTS chlorophyll is higher in general. Although the error is partly due to the fact that NASDA chlorophyll algorithm is an empirical algorithm for case 1 water, how much of this error is also due to the errors in sensor calibration or in atmospheric correction is not clear.