What is satellite oceanography? Is it a new form of remote sensing, or is it a new branding way the scientists use to sell their expertise? What are the differences between satellite oceanography with remote sensing for marine environments? Those questions are arising when I firstly heard about this discipline and it is continue to running around my mind until I experiencing the analysis of satellite oceanography data at PICES International Summer School on Satellite Oceanography for the Earth Environment in Seoul National University, South Korea, August 2009.
Based on my understanding, satellite oceanography is a way to understand ocean as a wide environment quickly. Yes, it indeed is slightly has similarity with the remote sensing for marine environment analysis, except the sensor uses broader coverage of ocean, very high temporal yet coarse spatial resolution. The application of satellite oceanography is to gain information like sea color, sea surface temperature, wind speed and vector which drives ocean circulation, with surface height and ocean current. Remote sensing for marine environment has slightly different direction of applications as it sensor has smaller geographic coverage, low temporal and higher spatial and channel resolution. The application of remote sensing of marine remote sensing is in the area like underwater and coastal habitat mapping, sea surface temperature, pollution dispersion, ship identification.
Although some people think that satellite oceanography is branding name for remote sensing for ocean environment, but I think that satellite oceanography is different discipline with remote sensing. Why? Because, (i) it uses different satellite and sensor which specifically designed to get ocean information, and (ii) it uses different formula and methodology to obtain ocean information. In addition, I think satellite oceanography analysis is challenging and needs more understanding on using programming language, different with marine remote sensing analysis which has heaps of WYSIWYG software.
If I was about analyzing satellite oceanography data, I will need to use IDL and Matlab. These two software are a little bit expensive, yet they are widely used in this discipline with wide community support. However, if I was about analyzing ocean color from NASA sensor however, Seadas is the great as it offers NASA support and easy to use. On top of that, Seadas is free!
