Biases in ocean color over a Secchi disk

The oldest record of ocean color measurements consists of visual comparisons to a standardized color scale, the Forel-Ule scale (FU). Analysis of FU archived data allows the construction of a century-long time series. In situ protocols of FU measurements require the perceived color to be estimated over the water column above a Secchi disk (SD) at half of the depth where it goes out of sight, whereas satellites retrieve FU over the water column alone. I show in this article that these two methodologies lead to different FU readings and thus, merging both kinds of data will create artificial trends. In case 1 waters, radiative transfer simulations show that measuring over a SD shifts FU between 0 and + 2 in respect to no SD, and there exists no possibility to relate the two in a univocal fashion. A univocal relationship is found if color is expressed in terms of the hue angle, which can be calculated from light spectra or RGB images. (C) 2017 Optical Society of America