Remote quantification of Cochlodinium polykrikoides blooms occurring in the East Sea using geostationary ocean color imager (GOCI)

Accurate and timely quantification of widespread harmful algal bloom (HAB) distribution is crucial to respond to the natural disaster, minimize the damage, and assess the environmental impact of the event. Although various remote sensing-based quantification approaches have been proposed for HAB since the advent of the ocean color satellite sensor, there have been no algorithms that were validated with in-situ quantitative measurements for the red tide occurring in the Korean seas. Furthermore, since the geostationary ocean color imager (GOCI) became available in June 2010, an algorithm that exploits its unprecedented observation frequency (every hour during the daytime) has been highly demanded to better track the changes in spatial distribution of red tide. This study developed a novel red tide quantification algorithm for GOCI that can estimate hourly chlorophyll-a (Chl a) concentration of Cochlodinium (Margalefidinium) polykrikoides, one of the major red tide species around Korean seas. The developed algorithm has been validated using in-situ Chl a measurements collected from a cruise campaign conducted in August 2013, when a massive C. polykrikoides bloom devastated Korean coasts. The proposed algorithm produced a high correlation (R2 = 0.92) with in-situ Chl a measurements with robust performance also for high Chl a concentration (300 mg/m3) in East Sea areas that typically have a relatively low total suspended particle concentration (<0.5 mg/m3).