Regional Vicarious Gain Adjustment For Coastal VIIRS Products

As part of the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) Ocean Cal/Val Team, Naval Research Lab-Stennis Space Center (NRL-SSC) has been working to facilitate calibration and validation of the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) ocean color products. By relaxing the constraints of the NASA Ocean Biology Processing Group (OBPG) methodology for vicarious calibration of ocean color satellites and utilizing the Aerosol Robotic Network Ocean Color (AERONET-OC) system to provide in situ data, we investigated differences between remotely sensed water leaving radiance and the expected in situ response in coastal areas and compare the results to traditional Marine Optical Buoy (MOBY) calibration/validation activities. An evaluation of the Suomi National Polar-Orbiting Partnership (SNPP)-VIIRS ocean color products was performed in coastal waters using the time series data obtained from the Northern Gulf of Mexico AERONET-OC site, WaveCIS. The coastal site provides different water types with varying complexity of CDOM, sedimentary, and chlorophyll components. Time series data sets were used to develop a vicarious gain adjustment (VGA) at this site, which provides a regional top of the atmospheric (TOA) spectral offset to compare the standard MOBY spectral calibration gain in open ocean waters. © 2014 SPIE