Atmospheric correction for China's coastal water colorremote sensing

The space satellite programs, such as CZCS/Nimbus - 7, VHRSR/FY - 1, OCFS/ ADEOS and SeaWiFS/SeaStar, have demonstrated and proven that remote sensing is a powerful tool for understanding the spatial and temporal ocean color distribution. In general, there are two main techni-cal keys in the processing ocean color satellite data. They are the atmospheric correction and the inver-sion of water-leaving radiance into water constituents (such as chlorophyll, suspended material and yel low substance) quantitatively. The SeaWiFS (sea-viewing wide field-of-view sensor) atmospheric correc-tion algorithm for China’s coastal waters is discussed. First, the major advantages of SeaWiFS are introduced. Second, in view of the problems of the SeaDAS algorithm applying in China’ s coastal waters, the local atmospheric correction algorithms are discussed and developed. Finally, the advantages of the local algorithms are presented by the compari-son of the results from two different algorithms.