Variability of suspended particulate matter in the Bohai Sea from the Geostationary Ocean Color Imager (GOCI)

This study assesses the performance of the Geostationary Ocean Imager (GOCI) for mapping of suspended particulate matter in the Bohai Sea, a turbid water region. GOCI imagery for remote sensing reflectance and Total Suspended Solids (TSS) is analysed in detail for two days in June 2011 (8 images per day). Both instantaneous and daily composite maps are considered and a comparison is made with corresponding reflectance and TSS products from MODIS-AQUA. Results show TSS distributions corresponding to previous studies of the region. The advantage of the higher acquisition frequency (8 images/day instead of 1) offered by GOCI is clearly demonstrated in the daily composite which is more complete during this period of scattered but moving clouds. Consideration of temporal variation over the day indicates low natural variability but some artificial variability from processing errors - this analysis provides a first indication of how the higher frequency of data from geostationary ocean colour could lead to improved data quality control via temporal coherency outlier detection. While there is room for improvement on the GOCI calibration, atmospheric correction and retrieval algorithms, the current study suggests that the GOCI data can already be used now to study qualitatively sediment dynamics except in the extremely turbid waters which are masked out of the current dataset. In a wider context, it is considered that the technical challenges of geostationary ocean colour have been met by the GOCI concept, and, notwithstanding potential improvements on the concept and data processing methods, it is recommended that this mission serve as a model for future geostationary ocean colour sensors over Europe/Africa and the Americas