Assessment of underwater irradiance and absorption of solar radiation at water column from satellite data

The volume absorption of solar radiation in water body determines important processes in the upper ocean such as primary bioproduction and heat balance. Assessment of penetration of solar radiation into water body can be performed with satellite data and the previous attempts in this direction were promising. This paper presents a package of the algorithms to compute the components of balance of photosynthetically available radiation (PAR) at sea level (incident, reflected from the rough sea surface, and water-leaving PAR) and to calculate the volume absorption of PAR in the upper layer from satellite ocean color data. Data measured by the SeaWiFS ocean color sensor and the ancillary data needed (such as ozone amount and wind speed) are used. Computations of the underwater irradiance are performed for the 0-25 m upper layer. The errors are estimated by direct comparison between the values of underwater irradiance and volume absorption derived by the algorithms developed and by the exact method. Monthly means of the components of PAR balance as well as the potential daily heating have been estimated in different regions.