Computing coastal ocean surface currents from infrared and ocean color satellite imagery: Methodology, application, and analysis

The MCC method is used to calculate ocean surface currents from yearlong collections of 2003 California coast and 2005 Gulf of Mexico thermal IR and ocean color satellite imagery. Velocities computed separately from these two data sets have correlations ranging from 0.73 to 0.81 and RMS magnitude and directional differences around 8.7 cm/s and 45°. When merged, ocean color velocities provide 21% new data along California, and 75% of all data in the Gulf of Mexico. Spring and summer isothermal Gulf of Mexico waters inhibit thermal IR MCC retrievals. Altimetry and MCC velocities have correlations ranging from 0.54 to 0.81 and RMS magnitude and directional differences around 13 cm/s and ~64°. Complementary data coverage lends motivation for a future merging of these two velocity products. The possibility of an ageostrophic MCC velocity component is examined. The MCC method is applied in near-realtime to generate currents on a daily basis.