Statistics of Surface Wind Effect on Ocean Colour Measured from Space

As it follows from both theoretical consideration and in-situ experiments, surface wind may significantly affect the ocean colour observed. This happens due to the variances of the surface roughness induced by the wind. The same effect may take place in satellite observations, but its detecting and estimation is usually complicated due to absence of independent information on “true” ocean colour. To overcome this problem a joint processing of optical and passive microwave remote data used for wind speed estimations (synchronous and well collocated) was suggested. In present work a previously proposed method for joint processing based on a model of nonlinear factor analysis and tested in numerical simulations was applied to actual remote data of MODIS and AMSR-E instruments for eleven-day interval of measurements in November, 2010. Remotely measured ocean colour was found to be sensitive to surface wind speed estimates. Results of these investigations are presented and discussed.