Environmental optics, remote sensing and phytoplankton ecology

水的光学遥感为观察和研究海洋和湖泊提供了一种极其有用的工具。要做到这一点，必须基于对这些敏感环境的潜在物理和生物学的理解，准确地解释卫星测量结果。这需要基于对生态系统功能的深刻理解来开发精确的算法。我的长期愿景是确保不同的测量——远程和原位，生物和物理——被正确地解释和输入（吸收）到描述水生系统如何运作和对人类影响作出反应的高级模型中。虽然今天这主要是用物理变量来完成的，但生物方面只是刚刚开始在同化模型中使用，因为它们的解释更复杂。我的实验室一直致力于通过对不同关键系统变量的一系列研究来实现这一长期目标，这些研究可以解开对水生系统的新理解：太阳诱导的荧光提供了浮游植物生理学的信息，而体积散射函数提供了水中所有小生物和非生物颗粒的信息。通过在反演建模程序方面的快速进展，我们将展示它们的突破性潜力，帮助我们更好地了解水生系统在大尺度上的功能。本提案有三个主要的短期目标：1)更好地确定海洋中体积散射函数和太阳诱导荧光变率的来源，以便改进现场和遥感观测；2)利用卫星推进大规模湖泊遥感，以便监测和研究湖泊随时间的变化和人类影响的程度；3)通过评估湖泊流域内的活动如何与气候变化一起改变湖泊功能，提高我们对加拿大各地湖泊现在和未来的人类影响的理解。这些短期目标将通过培养几名学生和博士后来实现，他们将从我的研究项目中非常多样化的活动中受益匪浅，发展巨大的科学广度和技能，以推进最先进的方法，并回答当代关键的科学问题。他们将进一步参与国际合作努力，这些努力是通过NSERC发现计划以前的资助而发展起来的。

Optical remote sensing of water provides an extremely useful tool to observe and study oceans and lakes. To do this, satellite measurements must be accurately interpreted based on an understanding of the underlying physics and biology of these sensitive environments. This requires the development of precise algorithms grounded in a deep understanding of ecosystem functioning. My long-term vision is to ensure that disparate measurements - remote and in situ, biology and physics - are correctly interpreted and fed (assimilated) into advanced models that describe how aquatic systems function and respond to human impacts. While today this is done mostly with physical variables, biological aspects are only starting to be used in assimilation models because their interpretation is more complex. My lab has been working towards this long-term goal through a series of studies on different key system variables that could unlock a new understanding of aquatic systems: Sun-induced fluorescence provides information on phytoplankton physiology while the volume scattering function provides information on all small living and non-living particles present in water. By making rapid advances in inversion modelling procedures, we will show their groundbreaking potential to help us understand better how aquatic systems function at large scales. The present proposal has three main short-term objectives: 1) better identify the sources of variability in the volume scattering function and Sun-induced fluorescence in the ocean to allow improved in situ and remote sensing observations; 2) Advance large-scale remote sensing of lakes using satellites to allow monitoring and the study of changes in lakes over time and the extent of human impacts; 3) Improve our understanding of the human impacts on lakes across Canada now and into the future by assessing how the activities within a lake's watershed together with climate change can modify lake functioning. Theses short-term objectives will be achieved by training several students and postdocs who will strongly benefit from the very diverse activities in my research program, develop great scientific breadth and skills to advance state-of-the-art methods, and answer key contemporary scientific questions. They will furthermore be participating in international collaborative efforts that have grown through previous grants from the NSERC Discovery program.