Envisat au chevet des récifs coralliens


The Great Barrier Reef
 
An Envisat MERIS image of the Great Barrier Reef off Australia's Queensland coast, centred on Cape York Peninsula. Taken on 19 August 2004, this MERIS Full Resolution mode images has a spatial resolution of 300 metres.

Heron Island
 
This February 2004 MERIS Full Resolution image shows the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef, with a close-up of the Heron Island reef, used as a test area for coral bleaching detection during the one-year programme, funded by the Wealth from Oceans Flagship and the CSIRO Earth Observation Centre.

Heron Island
 
This close-up of the Heron Island reef taken from the previous MERIS Full Resolution image shows the individual 300-metre pixels which were the basis of a coral bleaching detection sensitivity analysis. The results also turned out to be sensitive to tidal changes in bathymetry.

High-resolution image
 
This high-resolution IKONOS satellite image of the Heron Island reef was used for validation.

Validation
 
Divers from the team perform radiance/irradiance profiling on the waters of the Heron Island reef

Heron island
 
In-situ view of the Heron Island reef



Release date: 4 octobre 2005