Underwater Visibility

If you have to put divers in the water or are operating a small reconnaisance ROV, then you know underwater visibility is important to success.  Deep Blue Analysis can help with science-based estimates of the visibility using a proprietary process, described in part below.  Here we see a ten-day forecast.  The fact that the visibility increases below 60 m is a testimony to the adaption illuminence of the human eye. 

Deep Blue Analysis developed an algorithm that combines daily CMEMS forecast data of the water clarity (chla & Kd), the physics of underwater optics (Priesendorfer), and the biology of how the human eye adapts to different light levels (adaption illuminence) to estimate how far you should be able to see underwater. More specifically, how your eyes can detect contrast, think a shark, from the background.  If there is no contrast then you can’t see the object.  So visibility is actually contrast detection.