Sea Surface Salinity Inversion Model for Changjiang Estuary and Adjoining Sea Area with SMAP and MODIS Data Based on Machine Learning and Preliminary Application

Sea surface salinity (SSS) is one of the most important basic parameters for studying the oceanographic processes and is of great significance in identifying oceanic currents. However, for a long time, the salinity observation in the estuary and coastal waters has not been well resolved due to the technology limitation. In this study, the SSS inversion models for the Changjiang Estuary and the adjacent sea waters were established based on machine learning methods, using SMAP (Soil Moisture Active and Passive) salinity data combined with the specific bands and bands ratios of MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer). The performance of the three machine learning methods (Random Forest, Particle Swarm Optimization Support Vector Regression (PSO-SVR) and Automatic Machine Learning (TPOT)) are compared with accuracy verification by the in-situ measured SSS. Random Forest is proven to be effective for the SSS inversion in flood season, whereas TPOP performs the best for the dry season. The machine learning-based models effectively solve the problem of insufficient time span of SSS observation from salinity satellites. At the same time, an empirical algorithm was established for the SSS inversion for the sea areas with low salinity (<30 psu) where the machine learning based model fails with great errors. The average deviation of the complex SSS inversion models is −0.86 psu, validated with Copernicus Global Ocean Reanalysis Data. The long term series SSS dataset of March and August from 2003 to 2020 was then constructed to observe the salinity distribution characteristics of the flood season and the dry season, respectively. It is indicated that the distribution pattern of CDW can be divided into three categories: northeast-oriented expansion pattern, multi direction isotropic expansion pattern, and a turn pattern of which CDW shows changing direction, namely the northeast-southeast expansion pattern. The pattern of CDW expansion is indicated to be the comprehensive effect of the interaction of different currents. In addition, it is noteworthy that CDW shows increasing expansion with decreasing SSS in the front plume, especially in the flood season. This study not only gives a feasible solution for effective SSS observation, but also provides a dataset of basic oceanographic parameters for studying the coastal biogeochemical processes, evolution of land-sea interaction, and changing trend of material and energy transport by the CDW in the west Pacific boundary.