Oceans
Moving toward the realm of more traditional ocean color, hyperspectral
data enable discrimination between phytoplankton functional
types and may provide better estimates of phytopigment concentrations.
However, the ocean is a much darker target than the land,
which increases the necessity for good signal-to-noise and robust atmospheric
correction. Lorenzoni et al. (2015-in this issue) explore the relationship
between in-water spectral absorption, phytoplankton
community structure, and phytoplankton photophysiology (pigments
and carbon) for a complex coastal system in the Cariaco Basin, off
Venezuela. The authors find seasonality in all aspects of their data.
Pigment concentrations and the amount of particulate organic carbon
are correlated with phytoplankton community structure. Absorption
spectra cluster in the same pattern as the phytoplankton communities,
but the pigments themselves cannot be identified from absorption
spectra using higher-order derivative analysis.