Bio-Optical Characteristics of the Black Sea Coastal Waters near Sevastopol: Assessment of the MODIS and VIIRS Products Accuracy

Purpose. The purpose of the work is to evaluate accuracy of the satellite products for the coastal waters near Sevastopol, generated by the standard algorithms based on the MODIS and VIIRS (installed at the artificial Earth satellites Aqua and Terra, and at Suomi NPP, respectively) data. Methods and Results. In situ sampling was carried out at the station (44°37’26" N and 33°26’05" E) located at a distance of two miles from the Sevastopol Bay. The chlorophyll a concentration was measured by the spectrophotometric method. The spectral light absorption coefficients by optically active components were measured in accordance with the current NASA protocol. The spectroradiometers MODIS and VIIRS Level-2 data with spatial resolution 1 km in nadir around the in situ station (44°37’26"±0°00’32" N and 33°26’05"±0°00’54" E) were used. The satellite products were processed by the SeaDAS 7.5.3 software developed in NASA. The research showed that the standard NASA algorithms being applied to the MODIS and VIIRS data, yielded incorrect values of the optically active components’ content in the Black Sea coastal waters near Sevastopol as compared to the data of in situ measurements in the same region: the satellite-derived “chlorophyll a concentration” was on average 1.6 times lower in spring, and 1.4 times higher in summer; the contribution of phytoplankton to total light absorption at 443 nm was underestimated in 8.7 times; the light absorption by colored detrital matter was overestimated in 2.2 times. Conclusions. The NASA standard algorithms are inapplicable to calculating bio-optical indices in the coastal waters of the Black Sea near Sevastopol since they provide incorrect values of the satellite products (Ca-s, aph-s(443) and aCDM-s(443)). Operative ecological monitoring based on satellite data requires development of a regional algorithm taking into account the seawater optical features in the region and in the coastal zone, in particular.