LOV

The Laboratoire d’Océanographie de Villefranche (LOV) was formed 5 years ago by the merging of part of the biological oceanography section of the Villefranche observatory and the former "Laboratoire de Physique et Chimie Marines" (LPCM). The latter was created in 1965 by Pr. Alexandre Ivanoff, as a sub-branch of the "laboratoire d'Océanographie Physique". LOV is embedded in the "Observatoire Océanologique de Villefranche sur Mer" that comprise 4 laboratories all working in the field of Oceanography (Physics, chemistry, biology, ecology, zoology, geophysics, tectonics, etc..), and employing about 180 people. The administrative supervision is shared between "Université Pierre et Marie Curie" (Paris 6)and CNRS / INSU.
One of LOV research teams, namely the “remote sensing and marine optics” team (referred to as “LOV-OMT” hereinafter), is active in the field of marine optics for now about 35 years, under the successive scientific leading of Pr. Alexandre Ivanoff and Pr. André Morel. The contribution of this team in this field is internationally recognised, and it has led to the development of several activities, all based on a sound scientific knowledge of marine optics, radiative transfer in Earth fluids, and more generally oceanography. These research activities include for instance ocean colour remote sensing (all aspects of this domain being studied), the modelling of light propagation in water bodies (radiative transfer theory and applications), the modelling of primary production in the ocean.