Oral Session 7

Vicarious Calibration of the Ocean Color Instrument on the NASA PACE Satellite: Initial Results and Methodology

The Vicarious Calibration of a spaceborn ocean color radiometer is defined as a system calibration, where the system is comprised of the instrument and the atmospheric correction algorithm used to derive the water leaving signal, Lw. The objective is to derive a gain factor that adjusts the sensor-algorithm system response to minimize the difference between the satellite-derived Lw and a ground “truth” Lw value. Following the launch of the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, and ocean Ecosystem (PACE) satellite in February 2024, the SVC team from the NASA Ocean Ecology Lab has been developing an updated SVC processing pipeline based on these fundamental principles. Integral to this updated system are the data acquired from two independent radiometric systems: HyperNAV, a Lagrangian profiling buoy, and MarONet, a moored buoy that is the successor to the heritage MOBY (Marine Optical BuoY) system. Along with OCI, these components represent an entirely new system that must be vicariously calibrated. We will describe the specific methodology used for this calibration process, including a consideration of how new insights on atmospheric properties provided by PACE’s two polarimeters may influence the atmospheric correction approaches. During this data exploration phase of the PACE mission, we will characterize the temporal and geographic variability in the gain factors, including an assessment of how many data points are required to derive stable values. We will present initial gain results and an overview of the processes that the Ocean Biology Processing Group implement to apply these calibration points to PACE OCI data.

Emerson Sirk, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and Science Systems and Applications Inc. (SSAI), USA, https://orcid.org/0009-0001-1023-6629

Susanne Craig, Ocean Ecology Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, USA

Sean Bailey, Ocean Ecology Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, USA

Bryan Franz, Ocean Ecology Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, USA

Jeremy Werdell, Ocean Ecology Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, USA

Chris Proctor, Ocean Ecology Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, USA

Andrew Barnard, Oregon State University, USA

Nils Haentjens, University of Maine, USA

Emmanuel Boss, University of Maine, USA

Kenneth Voss, University of Miami, USA

Stephanie Flora, University of Miami, USA

Arthur Gleason, University of Miami, USA

Robert Frouin, University of California, San Diego, USA

Jing Tan, University of California, San Diego, USA

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