Development of a laser-based sea-ice chlorophyll sensor

We sought to develop a laser-based instrument to determine coverage of algae on the underside of sea ice. The long-term hope was this would lead to development of an instrument that could be deployed on submersible vehicles sent beneath sea ice to map algal coverage. We made measurements at 3 laser wavelengths of a range of algal concentrations on sea ice that we created.

We demonstrated significant correlations between laser light reflectance and ice-algal concentration. This paves the way for future instrument development.