Review of Oleg Viktorovich Kopelevich’s Works on Ocean Optics

Abstract

The article is dedicated to the memory of Oleg Viktorovich Kopelevich, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, who has been conducting research in the field of ocean optics for more than 50 years and has been the head of the Ocean Optics Laboratory of the Shirshov Institute of Oceanology for more than 30 years. The paper presents the main results obtained by Dr. Kopele-vich in different sections of ocean optics. At the first stage of his scientific activity, he was engaged in the study of light scattering in seawater. He identified four types of seawater scattering phase functions based on the results obtained in ocean expeditions. Subsequently, Dr. Kopelevich developed a low-parameter model of the seawater inherent optical properties. Since the late 1970s, an important place in his work has been the development of satellite methods for studying the ocean, in particular, the creation and improvement of regional bio-optical algorithms. The use of these algorithms for the waters of the Russian seas became the basis for the creation of the Atlas of their bio-optical characteristics, published regularly since 2002. The results of the use of regional algorithms were summed up in a collective monograph published in 2018. In addition, O. V. Kopelevich contributed to the study of light fields and the factors affecting them — cloud cover and mass phytoplankton blooms