ANALYSIS OF OCEAN COLOUR SCANNER DATA 
FIRST RESULTS ON NORTH SEA COASTAL WATER 
W. Mehl, B. Sturm 
Commission of the European Communities 
Joint Research Centre - Ispra Establishment 
I-21020 Ispra (Va.), Italy 
Bo Lundgren, 
University of Copenhagen, Institute of Physical Oceanography 
l. Introduction 
The Ocean Colour Scanner has been developed and built by NASA as a 
research Instrument for water analysis from ai-hborne platforms. 
Envisegcd des/gr characteristics were narrow .:j5:tral bands, in the 
-rder 5f 25 nm band width, and higher than usuel siynal-to-noise ratios, 
in view of the srn-.il differences to be sensed .n 'vater colour. 
in the Sumraer and Autumn of 1977, NASA put “wo oi the existing three 
protocypes of the scanner at the disposal of European institutions, to be 
used in prelauncli oxperiments. The purpose wa: to provide them with 
the type of data that can be expected from the Cosstal Zone Colour 
Scanner to be launched in September 1978 on board the NIMBUS-G satel- 
lite. In particular, in the framework of the EURASEP Project, spon- 
sored by the European Communities, a joint data acquisition experiment 
along the Dutch, Belgian and French coast from IJmuiden to Cap Gris 
Nez was conducted. In this exneriment the OCS was flown on a French 
Falcon Mystere aircraft, and a Bendix M2S Scanne- on a Dornier 28 
aircr«ft was operated by the German DFVLR; nine vessels made sea- 
truth measurements. 
Over a hundred scientists of all member states ct the European Commu- 
nities participated in the experiment 1), During a two weeks stand-by 
period, data equivalert to 1.5 flight hours or 1000 linear kilometers, 
were acquired with the OCS on the three days when the cloud conditions 
were favourable (June 27, June 29, July 3, see Figs. 2,4,5). 
The OCS data were recorded on high density digital tape on board the 
aircraft, and have been converted to computer-compatible tapes at the 
JRC-Ispra, from where it will be distributed to the participants of the 
experiment. 
At the time the work presented here, was carried out (June, 1978), 
roll corrected OCS CCTs (see Chapter 3) were available only for the 
data acquired on June 27. An attempt to correlate the multispectral 
data with sea truth was made. Preliminary results, as well as the pro-