Tiit Kutser

International Ocean Colour Workshop on Bio-optical Modelling

Stockholm, November 2001

The Baltic Sea Science Congress organisers invited me to participate in the event and covered part of my travel expenses. There were about 500 participants in the Congress that consisted of four different parts. Presentations in the morning sessions were from a global prospective and not only on the problems of the Baltic Sea. This explains why scientists from non-Baltic-Sea-countries (UK, USA, Norway, Australia) were invited to participate. Three different conferences took place in the afternoons: Conference of the Baltic Oceanographers (CBO), Conference of the Baltic Biologist (BMB) and Conference of the Baltic Geologists. Normally those three events are taking place separately and this was the first attempt to bring scientists from different fields together. Late evening poster sessions were organised in alphabetical order. It means oceanographic, biological and geological posters were presented together. This was very useful as scientists from different fields were able to discuss problems of common interest.

I presented a paper:“Detection of cyanobacterial blooms with hyperspectral remote sensing” in the Conference of the Baltic Oceanographers. There were number of interesting papers and posters in the Baltic Sea Science Congress, CBO and BMB. I should specially notice some research carried out in studying inherent optical properties (like specific absorption coefficient of different algae species) of optically active constituents of sea-water. This information is very useful for bio-optical modelling and developing of remote sensing algorithms for quantitative monitoring of water quality in relatively turbid waters (like coastal regions).

Remote Sensing Group from University of Stockholm organised a two day Bio-optical Modelling and Remote Sensing Workshop after the Baltic Sea Science Congress. About 50 scientists from the Baltic Sea countries (Finland, Russia, Estonia, Poland, Germany, Denmark and Sweden) as well as other regions (Norway, Italy, USA, UK, Australia) took part in the workshop. Oral presentations and posters were dedicated to different aspects of optics: optical modelling, remote sensing, atmospheric corrections and applications. I presented two papers in the workshop: “Bio-optical modelling and detections of cyanobacterial blooms” and : “Preliminary assessment of the performance of Hyperion in coastal waters. Cal/Val activities in Moreton Bay, Queensland, Australia” (authors: A. Dekker, V. Brando, J. Anstee, N. Pinnel, A. Held). I also exploited my position as a chairman of the remote sensing session and used part of a coffee break to show results of

my coral work.

Optical oceanography has long traditions in the Baltic Sea region. List of the workshop participants contained also many well known scientists in the fields of optical oceanography and remote sensing (E. Aas, R. Doerfer, N. Højerslev, H. Siegel, S. Victorov, if to mention just a few of them). There were very many interesting presentations during the workshop. Different methods and future prospective of atmospheric corrections were discussed. This problem is extremely important in case of turbid waters ((Australian) coastal waters, whole Baltic Sea, lakes) where almost all current correction methods fail. Couple of presentations where dedicated to algorithm developments for ENVISAT/MERIS to be launched in near future. Detection of potentially toxic algae blooms and developing remote sensing algorithms for interpretation of remote sensing data collected above relatively turbid coastal and inland waters where the main topics in remote sensing part of the workshop. Measuring optical properties of water constituents (phytoplankton, coloured dissolved organic matter, suspended solids) and developing better semi-analytical models where in the focus of bio-optical modelling session. Participation in the workshop and discussions that continued during the workshop dinner and beyond was very useful for my current and future work.