Yesterday’s Image of the Day — Ocean Revealed — elicited an interesting response from Norman Kuring, a NASA oceanographer who frequently contributes to the Earth Observatory. He notes:

“There have indeed been a number of studies that exploit sunglint for ocean research since Paul Scully-Power made his statement. However, I disagree with the follow-on sentence that, “his observation holds true for satellite observations today.” While sunglint does reveal some information about the ocean beneath, for visible radiometry sensors it usually obscures more than it reveals.”

“We in the ocean-color community often bemoan the fact that the MODIS instruments and VIIRS do not tilt to avoid the worst of the glint field. SeaWiFS, which was primarily an ocean mission, tilted, and the upcoming ocean radiometer on PACE is also planned to be tiltable to avoid the worst of the glint.”

Good point, Norman. Sunglint hides the telltale shades of blue and green that point to phytoplankton growth in the ocean’s surface waters. Here’s a good example, originally published on the Earth Observatory in 2007.

Notice how the bright sunglint obscures the color on the top and right side of the image. (NASA’s Ocean Color web site provides another good example with a more detailed description.) It’s no wonder that oceanographers like Norman cringe at the thought of sunglint in ocean images.

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