Comparative study of two recent edge-detection algorithms designed to process sea-surface temperature fields

Two algorithms used for the detection of fronts in satellite-derived sea-surface temperature fields are compared. The two algorithms produced surprisingly comparable results considering the substantial differences in the two approaches: multilevel (Algorithm 1) versus locally based (Algorithm 2). Algorithm 1 offers the advantage of shorter run times. Algorithm 2 can be made faster if one is willing to accept less reliable edge detection. Algorithm 1 also offers the advantage of being adaptive and therefore automatic in its application to different data sets. However, when direct control with regard to detection of the edges is demanded, Algorithm 2 contains two tunable parameters to select the smoothness and the strength of edges, while Algorithm 1 as presently coded does not