|
NASA Ocean Color Data supporting improvements to EPA hypoxia modeling for the Gulf of Mexico.
Veronica
P
Lance, Science Systems and Applications, Inc., veronica.p.lance@nasa.gov
(Presenter)
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been charged with the task of reducing the size, frequency and degree of hypoxic events in the Gulf of Mexico. The tools of the EPA to pursue particular goals and targets are policies leading to “best practices” to manage nutrient deposition by agriculture, industry and municipalities throughout the watershed. In order to develop effective policies, the EPA is developing and utilizing computational models to characterize impacts of changes to nutrient management on the Gulf of Mexico hypoxia problem. NASA satellite data products are components used in testing these models. We have applied several published algorithms to NASA ocean color satellite data obtained from the Ocean Biology Processing Group and compared those results with Gulf of Mexico field observations of surface ocean biogeochemical properties. The major field dataset was collected and analyzed by EPA Gulf Ecology Division (Lehrter et al. 2009) and covers 3 seasons throughout the years 2002-2007. NASA Ocean Color Group 2010 reprocessing (v.6.2) of SeaWiFS and Modis Aqua satellite data were retrieved to match the EPA field data set. Satellite values within an 8 h or 3 h time window from a 3x3 pixel box surrounding the field station were quality-controlled and averaged. The validation method of Bailey and Werdell (2006) along with target diagrams and total skill scores of Jolliff et al. (2009) were employed to quantitatively assess the algorithms and objectively determine the most appropriate to use for providing satellite data products for the EPA modeling effort. Results for chlorophyll, particulate carbon and total suspended solids will be shown. Presentation Type: Poster Session: Science in Support of Decision Making (Wed 10:00 AM) Associated Project(s):
Poster Location ID: 188
|