Remote and in-situ seawater bio-optical description during the XVIII oceanographic expedition.

During the XVIII oceanographic expedition of the Italian Antarctic Research Program, the bio-optical properties of seawater have been characterized by in-situ and remote sensors. In particular, the absorption and fluorescence of chromophoric dissolved organic matter (CDOM) have been measured by the absorption and attenuation meter WET Labs AC-9-25 and by the ENEA lidar fluorosensor, respectively. The data of those instruments have been used to develop a CDOM bio-optical algorithm for the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS). Such algorithm has been applied to the Ross Sea sector of the Southern Ocean and its results have been compared with the CDOM values obtained by other authors. Moreover, CDOM and chlorophyll-a maps have been released in order to reveal the relationships in the spatio-temporal dynamics of these two biomass indicators.