Monitoring Red Tide in South Sea of Korea (SSK) Using the Geostationary Ocean Color Imager (GOCI)

To identify Cochlodinium polykrikoides red tide from non-red tide water (satellite high chlorophyll waters) in the South Sea of Korea (SSK), we improved a spectral classification method proposed by Son et al.(2011) for the world first Geostationary Ocean Color Imager (GOCI). C. polykrikoides blooms and non-red tide waters were classified based on four different criteria. The first step revealed that the radiance peaks of potential red tide water occurred at 555 and 680 nm (fluorescence peak). The second step separated optically different waters that were influenced by relatively low and high contributions of colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM) (including detritus) to chlorophyll. The third and fourth steps discriminated red tide water from non-red tide water based on the blue-to-green ratio, respectively. After applying the red tide classification, the spectral response of C. polykrikoides red tide water, which is influenced by pigment concentration as well as CDOM (detritus), showed different slopes for the blue and green bands (lower slope at blue bands and higher slope at green bands). The opposite result was found for non-red tide water. This modified spectral classification method for GOCI led to increase user accuracy for C. polykrikoides and non-red tide blooms and provided a more reliable and robust identification of red tides over a wide range of oceanic environments than was possible using chlorophyll a concentration, or proposed red tide detection algorithms. Maps of C. polykrikoides red tide in SSK outlined patches of red tide covering the area near Naro-do and Tongyeong during the end of July and early of August, 2012 and extending into from Wan-do and Geoje-do during the middle of August, 2012.