Achievements and Goals of China's Satellite Oceanic Remote Sensing

This paper is divided into three parts.In the first part,it describes the major objects of o-cean monitoring and investigation by means of satellite remote sensing technology,including the observation of dynamic phenomena of ocean,ocean color and sea surface temperature as well as mapping of coastal zone and islands.In the second part,some research results of oceanic environment which were obtained in the past decade in China are presented.In the third part,some fundamental technologies are described,to which we should pay attention in order to make great contribution to marine environment by using satellite remote sensing technology in the coming few years in China.

Progress in the application of ocean color remote sensing in China

After many years＇ endeavor of research and application practice, the ocean color remote sensing in China has been growing into a new technique with valuable practicality from its initiate stage of trial research. With the aim of operational service, several kinds of ocean color remote sensing application systems have been developed and realized the long-term marine environmental monitoring utilizing the real-time or near real-time satellite and airborne remote sensing data. New progresses in the technology and application of ocean color remote sensing in China are described, including the research of key techniques and the development of various application systems. Meanwhile, according to the application status and demand, the prospective development of Chinese ocean color remote sensing is brought forward. With Chinese second ocean color satellite （ HY-1 B） orbiting on 11 April 2007 and the development of airborne ocean color remote sensing system for Chinese surveillance planes, great strides will take place in Chinese ocean color remote sensing application with the unique function in marine monitoring, resources management and national security, etc.

The application of hyperspectral remote sensing to coast environment investigation

Requirements for monitoring the coastal zone environment are first summarized. Then the appli- cation of hyperspectral remote sensing to coast environment investigation is introduced, such as the classification of coast beaches and bottom matter, target recognition, mine detection, oil spill identification and ocean color remote sensing. Finally, what is needed to follow on in application of hyperspectral remote sensing to coast environment is recommended.

Study on detection of coastal water environment of China by ocean color remote sensing

Coastal water environment is essentially enhanced by ocean color which is basically decided by substances concentration in water such as chlorophyll, suspended material and yellow substance. It is very difficult, even not possible, to detect water color by expensive ship routing, because of its temporal and spatial variety of feature and scales in the very complicated dynamical system of coastal water. With the development of satellite technique in the last 20 a, space sensors can be applied to detect ocean color by measuring the spectra of water leaving radiance.It is proven that ocean color remote sensing is a powerful tool for understanding the process of oceanic biology and physics. Since the 1980s, great attention has been paid to the advanced remote sensing technique in China, especially to development of satellite programs for the coastal water environment. On 7 September 1988, China launched her first polar orbit satellite FY-1A for meteorological and oceanographic application (water color and temperature) and the second satellite FY-1B two years later. In May 1999, China launched her second generation environment satellite FY-1C with higher sensitivies, more channels and stable operation. The special ocean color satellite HY-1 is planned to be in the orbit in 2001, whose main purpose is to detect the coastal water environment of China seas. China is also developing a very advantageous sensor termed as Chinese moderate imaging spectra radiometer (CMODIS) with 91 channels, which will be a good candidate of the third generation satellite FY-3 in 2003. The technical system of ocean color remote sensing was developed by the Second Institute of Oceanography (SIO), State Oceanic Administration (SOA) in 1997. The system included data receiving, processing, distribution, calibration, validation and application units. The Hangzhou Station of SIO, SOA has the capability to receive FY-1 and AVHRR data since 1989. It was also a SeaWiFS scientific research station authorized by NASA,USA to free receive SeaWiFS data from 16 September 1997. In the recent years, the local algorithms of atmospheric correction and inversion of ocean color have been developed for FY-1C and SeaWiFS, to improve the accuracy of the measurement from satellites efficiently. The satellite data are being applied to monitor coastal water environment, such as the spatial distribution of chlorophyll, suspended material and yellow substance, red tide detection and coastal current study. The results show that the ocean color remote sensing has latent capacity in the detection of coastal water environment.In consideration of the update technique progress of ocean color remote sensing and its more important role in the detection of coastal water in the 2000s, some suggestions are set forth, which would be beneficial to the design of a cheaper but practical coastal water detection system for marine environment preservation.

The first quantitative remote sensing of ocean internal waves by Chinese GF-3 SAR satellite

Quantitative analysis and retrieval is given by the State Key Laboratory of Satellite Ocean Environment Dynamics（SOED）,Second Institute of Oceanography（SIO）,State Oceanic Administration（SOA）,China,from the first batch of GF-3 synthetic aperture radar（SAR）data with ocean internal wave features in the Yellow Sea.

Geological environment in the South China Sea

The South China Sea(SCS),situated in southern China,at the junction of the Pacific Plate,the Eurasian Plate,and the Indian Ocean Plate,is a northeast-southwest trending semi-enclosed sea.It spans an area of approximately 3.5 million square kilometers and has an average water depth of about 1200 m,its deepest point reaching 5559 m.In 2021,a scientific expedition(called as U1 voyage)in the South China Sea was organized by the Innovation Research Team of Guangdong Special Key Program from March to April,this marks the first comprehensive scientific research voyage to the southern Uboundary corridor.Consisting of a total of 30 papers,this special issue is to share a portion of the research findings from this scientific expedition U1 voyage,covering six aspects:1)characteristics of the marine ecosystem in the SCS and its response to marine dynamic processes;2)multi-scale marine dynamic processes,sea-air interactions,and forecasting techniques in the SCS;3)geomorphology and geological structure;4)sedimentary processes and resource potential in the SCS;5)geostrategy,rights and interests maintenance and strategic countermeasures in the SCS;6)marine scientific instruments.By integrating the scientific research with the study of history,jurisprudence and international strategies,this issue presents new insights into the formation history and scope evolution of the SCS,and it also seeks to establish a new scientific framework based on the marine governance and development of the SCS.

Satellite-observed significant improvement in nearshore transparency of the Bohai Sea during pollution control

The Bohai Sea(BS)is the unique semi-closed inland sea of China,characterized by degraded water quality due to significant terrestrial pollution input.In order to improve its water quality,a dedicated action named“Uphill Battles for Integrated Bohai Sea Management”(UBIBSM,2018–2020)was implemented by the Chinese government.To evaluate the action effectiveness toward water quality improvement,variability of the satelliteobserved water transparency(Secchi disk depth,Z_(SD))was explored,with special emphasis on the nearshore waters(within 20 km from the coastline)prone to terrestrial influence.(1)Compared to the status before the action began(2011–2017),majority(87.3%)of the nearshore waters turned clear during the action implementation period(2018–2020),characterized by the elevated Z_(SD)by 11.6%±12.1%.(2)Nevertheless,the improvement was not spatially uniform,with higher Z_(SD)improvement in provinces of Hebei,Liaoning,and Shandong(13.2%±16.5%,13.2%±11.6%,10.8%±10.2%,respectively)followed by Tianjin(6.2%±4.7%).(3)Bayesian trend analysis found the abrupt Z_(SD)improvement in April 2018,which coincided with the initiation of UBIBSM,implying the water quality response to pollution control.More importantly,the independent statistics of land-based pollutant discharge also indicated that the significant reduction of terrestrial pollutant input during the UBIBSM action was the main driver of observed Z_(SD)improvement.(4)Compared with previous pollution control actions in the BS,UBIBSM was found to be the most successful one during the past 20 years,in terms of transparency improvement over nearshore waters.The presented results proved the UBIBSM-achieved remarkable water quality improvement,taking the advantage of long-term consistent and objective data record from satellite ocean color observation.

The black water around the Changjiang (Yangtze) Estuary in the spring of 2003

The Changjiang （Yangtze） Estuary is located in the East China Sea shelf with shallow water. Affected by the tide mixing and the runoff of the Changjiang River and the Qiantang River the turbidity is very high. Generally, the water-leaving radiance is high in the turbid water because of the large particle scattering. Based on the in-situ data and ocean color remote sensing data of SeaWiFS, it was found that there was a black water region with the normalized water-leaving radiances less than 0.5 mW/（cm2-μm2-sr）. The optical principle of the occurrence of this black water was analyzed by the inherent optical properties and the ocean color components. The results show that black water is caused by the relative low values of the suspended particle matter concentration and the back scattering ratio. In the black water region, the percentage of the phytoplankton absorption was relatively high, and the large size of the phytoplankton caused the low value of the particle backscattering ratio.

Upper ocean responses to category 5 typhoon Megi in the western north Pacific

Category 5 typhoon Megi was the most intense typhoon in 2010 of the world. It lingered in the South China Sea （SCS） for 5 d and caused a significant phytoplankton bloom detected by the satellite image. In this study, the authors investigated the ocean biological and physical responses to typhoon Megi by using chlorophyll-a （chl-a） concentration, sea surface temperature （SST）, sea surface height anomaly （SSHA）, sea surface wind measurements derived from different satellites and in situ data. The chl-a concentration （〉3 mg/m3） increased thirty times in the SCS after the typhoon passage in comparison with the mean level of October averaged from 2002 to 2009. With the relationship of wind stress curl and upwelling, the authors found that the speed of upwelling was over ten times during typhoon than pre-typhoon period. Moreover, the mixed layer deepened about 20 m. These reveal that the enhancement of chl-a concentration was triggered by strong vertical mixing and upwelling. Along the track of typhoon, the maximum sea surface cooling （6-8~C） took place in the SCS where the moving speed of typhoon was only 1.4-2.8 m/s and the mixed layer depth was about 20 m in pre-typhoon period. However, the SST drop at the east of the Philippines is only 1-2~C where the translation speed of typhoon was 5.5-6.9 m/s and the mixed layer depth was about 40 m in pre-typhoon period. So the extent of the SST drop was probably due to the moving speed of typhoon and the depth of the mixed layer. In addition, the region with the largest decline of the sea surface height anomaly can indicate the location where the maximum cooling occurs.

Spectral classification of water masses under the influence of the Amazon River plume

The large amount of dissolved and particulate material discharged by the Amazon River into the Equatorial Atlantic Ocean cause distinct spectral response of its waters as compared to the nearby ocean waters. This paper shows the application of K-means clustering algorithm for classifying water masses in the region under the Amazon River plume influence according to their spectral behavior. Salinity and temperature data from 67 oceanographic stations were related to Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor （SeaWiFS） remote sensing reflectances values and the following bio-optical products： （i） chlorophyll-a concentration, （ii） water attenuation coefficient and （iii） absorption coefficient for dissolved and detrital material. Four different water masses were identified such as： （1） oceanic water, （2） intermediate oceanic water, （3） intermediate river plume water and （4） Amazon River plume water. The spectral behavior of these water masses allowed concluding that the main active optical component of the waters in the region is the colored dissolved organic matter originated mostly from the Amazon River.

An ultraviolet to visible scheme to estimate chromophoric dissolved organic matter absorption in a Case-2 water from remote sensing reflectance

In a typical Case-2 coastal water environment(here,the Pearl River Estuary(PRE),China),chromophoric dissolved organic matter(CDOM)and suspended particulates dominate the water optical properties,and CDOM fluorescence contributes considerably to surface water reflectance.In this paper,an ultraviolet(UV)to visible scheme to retrieve CDOM absorption(ag)is developed based on a set of in situ observations.First,the CDOM UV absorption and spectral slope(Sg)are derived directly from the visible remote sensing reflectance;then the Sg is extrapolated to obtain the spectrum from UV to visible spectral range.This algorithm performs well,with an overall mean absolute percent difference(MAPD)of^30%,~5%and^6%for the estimation of ag in 250–450 nm,Sg over 250–400 nm,and 250–700 nm,respectively.The effectiveness and stability of the algorithm is further demonstrated in capturing the distribution pattern of CDOM absorption in the PRE from satellite ocean color imagery with multiple spatial and spectral resolution,namely:the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite(VIIRS)(750 m/Multispectral),the Ocean and Land Color Instrument(OLCI)(300 m/Multispectral),the Hyperspectral Imager for the Coastal Ocean(HICO)(100 m/Hyperspectral),and the Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager(OLI)(30 m/Multispectral).The UV to visible scheme can benefit the CDOM absorption estimation in two aspects:1)it is free from the disturbance of suspended matter;2)it avoids uncertainties caused by the low signalto-noise ratio(SNR)of ag measurements in the visible range.The algorithm is effective in revealing multiple scales of variation of CDOM absorption from ocean color observations.

Ocean Observation from Haiyang Satellites

In 2018,China successfully launched three new Haiyang(which means ocean in Chinese,referred to as HY)satellites which are an ocean color observation satellite HY-1C(operational),an ocean dynamics environment satellite HY-2B(operational)and the China-France ocean satellite CFOSAT(experimental).In 2019,all the three satellites had finished their commissioning phases and were declared operational.HY-2A satellite continues to operate in-orbit,and its operational status is basically normal.So in 2020,China has 4 Haiyang satellites in-orbit,China’s ocean satellites enter into a new operational application phase.The operation of the ground application system of Chinese ocean satellites is stable.In 2019,Beijing,Hainan,Mudanjiang,and Hangzhou ocean satellite ground stations had received the data of HY-1C,HY-2A,HY-2B,and CFOSAT 5012 orbits and 26.46 TB data had been distributed to both domestic and international users.Chinese ocean satellite data has played an important role in marine disaster prevention and mitigation,development and management of marine resources,maintenance of marine rights and interests,marine environment protection,scientific researches,and blue economy development.