AUTHOR=Gleason Arthur C. R. , Smith Ross , Purkis Sam J. , Goodrich Kyle , Dempsey Alexandra , Mantero Alejandro TITLE=The Prospect of Global Coral Reef Bathymetry by Combining Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite-2 Altimetry With Multispectral Satellite Imagery JOURNAL=Frontiers in Marine Science VOLUME=8 YEAR=2021 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/marine-science/articles/10.3389/fmars.2021.694783 DOI=10.3389/fmars.2021.694783 ISSN=2296-7745 ABSTRACT=
Empirical methods for estimating shallow-water bathymetry using passive multispectral satellite imagery are robust and globally applicable, in theory, but they require copious local measurements of water depth for algorithm calibration. Such calibration data have historically been unavailable for most locations, but NASA’s Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2), a satellite-based LiDAR, might hold unique promise to fill this critical data gap. Although ICESat-2 was not designed as a marine altimeter, its ATLAS sensor consists of six green (532 nm) lasers that can penetrate a water surface and return photons reflected by the seabed, thereby generating bathymetric profiles. Utilizing TCarta’s NSF SBIR-funded Space-Based Laser Bathymetry Extraction Tool and ICESat-2’s ATL03 geolocated photon data product, we have compared ICESat-2 bathymetric retrievals with a portfolio of soundings acquired