Ocean Colour: Theory and Applications in a Decade of CZCS Experience

Optical remote sensing is of invaluable help in understanding the marine environment and its biogeochemical and physical processes. The Coastal Zone Color Scanner (CZCS), which operated on board the NIMBUS-7 satellite from late 1978 to early 1986, has been the main source of ocean colour data. Much work has been devoted to CZCS data processing and analysis techniques throughout the 1980s. After a decade of experience, the Productivity of the Global Ocean (PGO) Activity which was established in the framework of the International Space Year 1992 (ISY'92) by SAFISY, the Space Agency Forum of ISY sponsored a workshop aimed at providing a reference in ocean colour science and at promoting the full exploitation of the CZCS historical data in the field of biological oceanography. The present volume originates from that workshop, and comprises a series of state-of-the-art contributions on theory, applications and future perspectives of ocean colour.