Long Term Statistics of Remotely Sensed Parameters in the Balitc Sea with MERIS-Data

Abstract

The Baltic Sea is an important ecological factor for all the riparian states. Therefore there is a high interest to continuously obtain detailed information about its ecological state. Due to a pan-European interest in the survey of the marine and coastal environment - ESA funded the GMES Service Element project MARCOAST started in 2005. Within the frame of this project a regular (daily) service of the determination of water properties basing on the interpretation of MERIS data was established. It allows a routine estimation of the quality of all relevant European water basins/areas. DLR developed a number of algorithms allowing the interpretation of water constituent parameters with special focus to the specific inherent bio-optical properties of the Baltic Sea. They allow the provision of quantitative maps of Chlorophyll, Suspended Matter, Gelbstoff and Water Transparency. The results are regularly provided to the State Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Geology of the state Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (LUNG). Since the start of the project in 2005 a large number of data could be collected and can now be subjected to a broad statistical analysis. The current presentation will describe the used interpretation scheme and algorithms and investigate the long-term statistical behavior of the mentioned parameters for different years. This gives interesting inputs for climatologic data bases and can be a valuable contribution for the estimation of the time development of the Baltic Sea water quality. Additionally a number of comparisons of remotely sensed parameters with in-situ measurements will be shown and discussed.