Introducing IMOS  >  Facilities  >  Satellite Remote Sensing (SRS)  >  Lucinda Jetty Coastal Observatory
IMOS acknowledges Queensland Sugar Ltd for the use of the jetty on which the Lucinda Jetty Coastal Observatory is located.

The Lucinda Jetty Coastal Observatory (LJCO ) is located on the end of the 5.8 km long Lucinda Jetty (18.52 S, 146.39 E) in the coastal waters of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area close to the Herbert River Estuary and the Hinchinbrook Channel.

Under the leadership of Vittorio Brando of CSIRO Land & Water, LJCO is delivering valuable optical data of tropical coastal waters and atmosphere. The data provided by LJCO is helping to unravel the inaccuracies in remotely-sensed satellite ocean colour products due to the optical complexity in coastal waters and the overlying atmosphere.

The observatory will become the preeminent source of measurements for the validation of coastal-ocean colour radiometric products applied to biogeochemistry and climate studies in Australia.

The validation and improved accuracy of remotely sensed observations will lead to an increase in the reliability and precision for applications such as water quality monitoring.

 

Instruments

At Lucinda Jetty Coastal Observatory two different data streams are acquired: above water measurements of the water radiance and in water measurements of the optical properties.

Above water radiometry:

  • A CIMEL SeaPRISM is an autonomous radiometer that performs marine radiometric measurements for determining water leaving radiances as well as atmospheric observations for retrieving aerosol optical properties
  • A Satlantic HyperOCR provides hyperspectral measurements of downwelling irradiance

An in situ water optical package is deployed to measure:

  • Conductivity, temperature, pressure, dissolved oxygen, chlorophyll fluorescence and turbidity (WETLabs WQM)
  • Coloured dissolved organic matter fluorescence (WETLabs WETStar fluorometer)
  • Particulate and dissolved absorption and attenuation spectral coefficients (WETLabs ac-s)
  • Total backscattering coefficients (WETLabs BB9)

All instruments were commissioned on 28 October 2009.

 

 

 

To top

Data Acquisition and Telemetry

The data acquisition is managed with a Data Acquisition and Power Conditioning System (DAPCS) developed by WETLabs. The DAPCS is specifically designed to enable high speed/bandwidth communications and power control to support data collection from a broad suite of environmental sampling instruments.

Data is acquired in real time by the Linux Server and PC installed on site. The raw data-stream is uploaded via NextG broadband to CSIRO

To top