The Arctic Nearshore Turbidity Algorithm (ANTA) - A multi sensor turbidity algorithm for Arctic nearshore environments

• Published in: Science of Remote Sensing
• Main Authors: Konstantin P. Klein, Hugues Lantuit, Birgit Heim, David Doxaran, Bennet Juhls, Ingmar Nitze, Daniela Walch, Amanda Poste, Janne E. Søreide
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2021
• Subjects: Ocean color remote sensing; Turbidity retrieval; Nearshore zone; Arctic Ocean; Physical geography; GB3-5030; Science; Q; Arctic; Svalbard; Herschel Island; Adventfjorden; Climate change; permafrost
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.srs.2021.100036; https://doaj.org/article/ce6846d5272b450e9520a330102e2f80

The Arctic is greatly impacted by climate change. The increase in air temperature drives the thawing of permafrost and an increase in coastal erosion and river discharge. This leads to a greater input of sediment and organic matter into coastal waters, which substantially impacts the ecosystems by reducing light transmission through the water column and altering the biogeochemistry, but also the subsistence economy of local people, and changes in climate because of the transformation of organic matter into greenhouse gases. Yet, the quantification of suspended sediment in Arctic coastal and nearshore waters remains unsatisfactory due to the absence of dedicated algorithms to resolve the high loads occurring in the close vicinity of the shoreline. In this study we present the Arctic Nearshore Turbidity Algorithm (ANTA), the first reflectance-turbidity relationship specifically targeted towards Arctic nearshore waters that is tuned with in-situ measurements from the nearshore waters of Herschel Island Qikiqtaruk in the western Canadian Arctic. A semi-empirical model was calibrated for several relevant sensors in ocean color remote sensing, including MODIS, Sentinel 3 (OLCI), Landsat 8 (OLI), and Sentinel 2 (MSI), as well as the older Landsat sensors TM and ETM+. The ANTA performed better with Landsat 8 than with Sentinel 2 and Sentinel 3. The application of the ANTA to Sentinel 2 imagery that matches in-situ turbidity samples taken in Adventfjorden, Svalbard, shows transferability to nearshore areas beyond Herschel Island Qikiqtaruk.