QUANTITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS FOR OCEAN OBSERVATIONS USING HYPERSPECTRAL AND MULTISPECTRAL DATA PROVIDED FROM A MULTI- SENSOR SYSTEM PACKAGE

ABSTRACT A feasibility study is presented which examined the application of a distributed sensor system package for ocean observations focusing the attention on the matchup of remotely sensed derived reflectances with in situ data. To verify the platform integration and data reliability for maritime missions, a field exercise was performed by NATO Research Centre (NURC) to build sensor integration, performance evaluation and data processing refinement. Our system incorporates an aircraft, satellites (Geo-Eye1, MODIS and MERIS) as well as a NATO research vessel (N/RV Alliance) that was used to perform both radiometric and bio-optical in situ measurements that were collected from 13 th to 26 th of March 2009, in the Ligurian Sea. These data were then used to calibrate and validate remote sensing reflectances. Once these data were reviewed and errors minimized, image processing (such as georectification and atmospheric corrections) were performed. To improve the aircraft data its images were rectified and geo-referenced to within 1-2 m accuracy generating water-leaving radiances maps that were compared with those available from the in situ and satellite measurements. The achieved performance was within published uncertainties [1] and the results showed that the aircraft imagery surpasses spatial and spectral resolution available from the satellites. On the basis of the methodology and algorithms tested here, our long term goal will be to retrieve high level oceanographic aircraft products such as Inherent and Apparent Optical Properties (IOP and AOP), diffuse attenuation coefficient (K) and chlorophyll-a concentration