oil droplet clouds suspended in the sea: can they be remotely detected?

Abstract

Oil floating on the sea surface can be detected by both passive and active methods using the ultraviolet-to-microwave spectrum, whereas oil immersed below the sea surface can signal its presence only in visible light. This paper presents an optical model representing a selected case of the sea polluted by an oil suspension for a selected concentration (10 ppm) located in a layer of exemplary thickness (5 m) separated from the sea surface by an unpolluted layer (thickness 1 m). The impact of wavelength and state of the sea surface on reflectance changes is presented based on the results of Monte Carlo ray tracing. A two-wavelength index of reflectance is proposed to detect oil suspended in the water column (645–469 nm).