COMPARISON OF RED TIDE DETECTION BY A NEW RED TIDE INDEX METHOD AND STANDARD BIO-OPTICAL ALGORITHM APPLIED TO SEA WIFS IMAGERY IN OPTICALLY COMPLEX CASE-II WATERS

Various methods to detect the phytoplankton/red tide blooms in the oceanic waters have been developed and tested on satellite ocean color imagery since the last two and half decades, but accurate detection of blooms with these methods remains challenging in optically complex turbid waters, mainly because of the eventual interference of absorbing and scattering properties of dissolved organic and particulate inorganic matters with these methods. The present study introduces a new method called Red tide Index (Rl), providing indices which behave as a good measure of detecting red tide algal blooms in high scattering and absorbing waters of the Korean South Sea and Yellow Sea. The effectiveness of this method in identifying and locating red tides is compared with the standard Ocean Chlorophyll 4 (OC4) bio-optical algorithm applied to SeaWiFS ocean imagery, acquired during two bloom episodes on 27 March 2002 and 28 September 2003. The result revealed that OC4 bio-optical algorithm falsely identifies red tide blooms in areas abundance in colored dissolved organic and particulate inorganic matter constituents associated with coastal areas, estuaries and river mouths, whereas red tide index provides improved capability of detecting, predicting and monitoring of these blooms in both clear and turbid waters.