Diagnostics of the mesoscale water exchange on the basis of statistical characteristics of the distribution of normalized radiance

A new approach is suggested for the diagnostics of manifestations of water exchange in the field of normalized radiance and automation of the analysis of digital images of the water surface. The approach is based on the application of a set of statistical characteristics of a radiance relief as an integral indication of local inhomogeneities in the water medium and provides for the estimate of these characteristics over small regions (frames) of the basin studied using multispectral information. Using the example of the SeaWiFS scanner data on the evolution of an eddy dipole in August 1998 in a study region with a size of 160 × 160 km in the northwestern part of the Black Sea, it was shown that the estimates of a number of statistical characteristics of spectrally different radiance reliefs found in the frames with a size of 40 × 40 km significantly depended on the presence of fragments of an eddy dipole or other structures in these frames. A set of such characteristics made possible reliable differentiation of radiance reliefs by the degree of randomness, by the orientation of the inhomogeneities that form the relief, and by other properties caused by the variability of the light scattering and light absorbing admixtures in the sea medium in the course of the water exchange. The approach does not require any preliminary information about the object of observations. It is promising in the basins with moderate water transparency and vertical inhomogeneity of the upper layer available for remote profiling.