Practical application of the “turbid water” flag in ocean color imagery: Interference with sun-glint contaminated pixels in open ocean

A simple method to identify turbid, sediment-loaded, waters within satellite ocean color imageries was recently proposed (A. Morel and S. Bélanger, Remote Sensing of Environment, 102, (2006), 237–249). Systematic application of this method to the level-3 composites obtained from three ocean color sensors shows that the “turbid” flag is often raised in the open ocean, especially in the sub-tropical oligotrophic gyres, where turbidity is unlikely. In addition these flagged zones migrate with season, and clearly follow the sun declination course. The combination of low chlorophyll waters with a residual sun-glint is at the origin of this artifact. Simple approaches for eliminating such a misleading detection are proposed. The identification and elimination of the bias are also needed in particular for an unambiguous detection of the presence of calcite (coccolithophores) in open waters.