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The NASA OBPG 2020 On-Orbit Calibration of SNPP VIIRS for Ocean Color Applications

The NASA Ocean Biology Processing Group (OBPG) has continued monitoring the SNPP VIIRS on-orbit calibration for bands M1-M11 over its mission to optimize the calibration for ocean color applications. The OBPG has recently implemented several changes to the calibration scheme: using solar-derived f-factors to detrend the lunar observations; using long-term exponentials of time as basis vectors (along with libration angles) for radiometric fits to any resulting lunar temporal drifts; deriving gain adjustments to the solar f-factors from these exponentials; and deriving gain adjustments due to modulated RSRs outside of the solar/lunar calibration using TOA reference spectra. These calibration changes minimize the impact of uncertainties in any one component of the calibration on the derived f-factors. The final f-factors incorporate VIIRS solar diffuser measurements, h-factor BRDF corrections, lunar-derived gains, and modulated RSR gains. The combined BRDF corrections, lunar gain adjustments, and mRSR gain adjustments define effective h-factors for each band. The improvements in the on-orbit calibration are validated by evaluation of globally-derived anomaly plots of remote sensing reflectance for the ocean color bands. The ultimate goal of the OBPG calibration effort is incorporation of a consistent SNPP VIIRS ocean color data set into the NASA multi-mission ocean color climate data record.

VIIRS↗

NASA OBPG Field Program and SeaBASS Updates

Calibrating ocean color satellite instruments and validating their data products requires temporal and spatial abundances of high quality in situ oceanographic data. To this end, the Ocean Ecology Laboratory (OEL) maintains two entities that are engaged in field data collection and archival. First, the OEL houses a Field Support Group to collect in situ oceanographic measurements, execute laboratory analyses, revise community-vetted protocols for conducting these exercises, and host community training events. Second, the OEL maintains the SeaWiFS Bio-optical Archive and Storage System (SeaBASS) as the permanent archive for all in situ data collected under the auspices of the NASA Ocean Biology and Biogeochemistry Program (OBB; Dr. Paula Bontempi, Program Manager). This talk provides the OBB community and interested researchers their annual update on both the Field Support Group and SeaBASS.

Wedell, P. Jeremy↗

MODIS Aqua Reflective Solar Bands Calibration for NASA's R2018 Ocean Color Products

Remote sensing ocean color products have stringent requirements on radiometric calibration stability. To address a calibration deficiency in MODIS Aqua in recent years, the NASA Ocean Biological Processing Group (OBPG) developed a new calibration for the reflective solar bands. Prior to the reprocessing of NASA's ocean color products for 2018 (R2018), the OBPG MODIS products had been based on calibration provided by the MODIS Calibration Support Team (MCST). Several modifications were made to the MCST calibration approach to improve the calibration accuracy for ocean color products. These include: 1) apply 936nm detector normalization to solar diffuser stability monitor (SDSM) data to reduce coherent noise; 2) modeling solar diffuser (SD) degradation wavelength dependency to determine SD degradation in near-infrared and shortwave infrared wavelength; 3) detector gains are computed using SD screen-closed data to better match ocean radiance levels in all bands; 4) a simple atmospheric correction is performed to reduce bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) effects in desert trends; 5) modulated relative spectral response (RSR) impact on ocean data is estimated and used to adjust the calibration coefficients. 6) smoothing is used to characterize the temporal change in calibration, and response versus scan angle (RVS) changes are characterized using 2nd order polynomials to improve spatial/temporal calibration stability. Relative to the previous R2014 ocean color products, the R2018 calibration removed the suspect late-mission global trends in blue-band water-leaving reflectance, and some anomalously large short-term variability (spikes) in the temporal trend of chlorophyll concentration. This paper will describe the OBPG calibration with a focus on the differences between the MCST and OBPG approaches.

calibration↗

Atmospheric Correction for Satellite Ocean Color Radiometry

This tutorial is an introduction to atmospheric correction in general and also documentation of the atmospheric correction algorithms currently implemented by the NASA Ocean Biology Processing Group (OBPG) for processing ocean color data from satellite-borne sensors such as MODIS and VIIRS. The intended audience is graduate students or others who are encountering this topic for the first time. The tutorial is in two parts. Part I discusses the generic atmospheric correction problem. The magnitude and nature of the problem are first illustrated with numerical results generated by a coupled ocean-atmosphere radiative transfer model. That code allow the various contributions (Rayleigh and aerosol path radiance, surface reflectance, water-leaving radiance, etc.) to the topof- the-atmosphere (TOA) radiance to be separated out. Particular attention is then paid to the definition, calculation, and interpretation of the so-called "exact normalized water-leaving radiance" and its equivalent reflectance. Part I ends with chapters on the calculation of direct and diffuse atmospheric transmittances, and on how vicarious calibration is performed. Part II then describes one by one the particular algorithms currently used by the OBPG to effect the various steps of the atmospheric correction process, viz. the corrections for absorption and scattering by gases and aerosols, Sun and sky reflectance by the sea surface and whitecaps, and finally corrections for sensor out-of-band response and polarization effects. One goal of the tutorial-guided by teaching needs- is to distill the results of dozens of papers published over several decades of research in atmospheric correction for ocean color remote sensing.

MODIS↗

Uncertainty Assessment of the SeaWiFS On-Orbit Calibration

Ocean color climate data records require water-leaving radiances with 5% absolute and 1% relative accuracies as input. Because of the amplification of any sensor calibration errors by the atmospheric correction, the 1% relative accuracy requirement translates into a 0.1% long-term radiometric stability requirement for top-of-the atmosphere radiances. The rigorous on-orbit calibration program developed and implemented for SeaWiFS by the NASA Ocean Biology Processing Group (OBPG) Calibration and Validation Team (CVT) has allowed the CVT to maintain the stability of the radiometric calibration of SeaWiFS at 0.13% or better over the mission. The uncertainties in the resulting calibrated top-of-the-atmosphere (TOA) radiances can be addressed in terms of accuracy (biases in the measurements), precision (scatter in the measurements), and stability (repeatability of the measurements). The calibration biases of lunar observations relative to the USGS RObotic Lunar Observatory (ROLO) photometric model of the Moon are 2-3%. The biases from the vicarious calibration against the Marine Optical Buoy (MOBY) are 1-2%. The precision of the calibration derived from the solar calibration signal-tonoise ratios are 0.16%, from the lunar residuals are 0.13%, and from the vicarious gains are 0.10%. The long-term stability of the TOA radiances, derived from the lunar time series, is 0.13%. The stability of the vicariouslycalibrated TOA radiances, incorporating the uncertainties in the MOBY measurements and the atmospheric correction, is 0.30%. These results allow the OBPG to produce climate data records from the SeaWiFS ocean color data.

Eplee, Robert E., Jr.↗

Adjustments to the MODIS Terra Radiometric Calibration and Polarization Sensitivity in the 2010 Reprocessing

The Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA s Earth Observing System (EOS) satellite Terra provides global coverage of top-of-atmosphere (TOA) radiances that have been successfully used for terrestrial and atmospheric research. The MODIS Terra ocean color products, however, have been compromised by an inadequate radiometric calibration at the short wavelengths. The Ocean Biology Processing Group (OBPG) at NASA has derived radiometric corrections using ocean color products from the SeaWiFS sensor as truth fields. In the R2010.0 reprocessing, these corrections have been applied to the whole mission life span of 10 years. This paper presents the corrections to the radiometric gains and to the instrument polarization sensitivity, demonstrates the improvement to the Terra ocean color products, and discusses issues that need further investigation. Although the global averages of MODIS Terra ocean color products are now in excellent agreement with those of SeaWiFS and MODIS Aqua, and image quality has been significantly improved, the large corrections applied to the radiometric calibration and polarization sensitivity require additional caution when using the data.

Meister, Gerhard↗

Quality and Consistency of the NASA Ocean Color Data Record

The NASA Ocean Biology Processing Group (OBPG) recently reprocessed the multimission ocean color time-series from SeaWiFS, MODIS-Aqua, and MODIS-Terra using common algorithms and improved instrument calibration knowledge. Here we present an analysis of the quality and consistency of the resulting ocean color retrievals, including spectral water-leaving reflectance, chlorophyll a concentration, and diffuse attenuation. Statistical analysis of satellite retrievals relative to in situ measurements will be presented for each sensor, as well as an assessment of consistency in the global time-series for the overlapping periods of the missions. Results will show that the satellite retrievals are in good agreement with in situ measurements, and that the sensor ocean color data records are highly consistent over the common mission lifespan for the global deep oceans, but with degraded agreement in higher productivity, higher complexity coastal regions.

Franz, Bryan A.↗

Corrections to MODIS Terra Calibration and Polarization Trending Derived from Ocean Color Products

Remotely sensed ocean color products require highly accurate top-of-atmosphere (TOA) radiances, on the order of 0.5% or better. Due to incidents both prelaunch and on-orbit, meeting this requirement has been a consistent problem for the MODIS instrument on the Terra satellite, especially in the later part of the mission. The NASA Ocean Biology Processing Group (OBPG) has developed an approach to correct the TOA radiances of MODIS Terra using spatially and temporally averaged ocean color products from other ocean color sensors (such as the SeaWiFS instrument on Orbview-2 or the MODIS instrument on the Aqua satellite). The latest results suggest that for MODIS Terra, both linear polarization parameters of the Mueller matrix are temporally evolving. A change to the functional form of the scan angle dependence improved the quality of the derived coefficients. Additionally, this paper demonstrates that simultaneously retrieving polarization and gain parameters improves the gain retrieval (versus retrieving the gain parameter only).

Polarization↗

Federated Giovanni: A Distributed Web Service for Analysis and Visualization of Remote Sensing Data

The Geospatial Interactive Online Visualization and Analysis Interface (Giovanni) is a popular tool for users of the Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC) and has been in use for over a decade. It provides a wide variety of algorithms and visualizations to explore large remote sensing datasets without having to download the data and without having to write readers and visualizers for it. Giovanni is now being extended to enable its capabilities at other data centers within the Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS). This Federated Giovanni will allow four other data centers to add and maintain their data within Giovanni on behalf of their user community. Those data centers are the Physical Oceanography Distributed Active Archive Center (PO.DAAC), MODIS Adaptive Processing System (MODAPS), Ocean Biology Processing Group (OBPG), and Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC). Three tiers are supported: Tier 1 (GES DISC-hosted) gives the remote data center a data management interface to add and maintain data, which are provided through the Giovanni instance at the GES DISC. Tier 2 packages Giovanni up as a virtual machine for distribution to and deployment by the other data centers. Data variables are shared among data centers by sharing documents from the Solr database that underpins Giovanni's data management capabilities. However, each data center maintains their own instance of Giovanni, exposing the variables of most interest to their user community. Tier 3 is a Shared Source model, in which the data centers cooperate to extend the infrastructure by contributing source code.

Giovanni↗

Scientific Impact of MODIS C5 Calibration Degradation and C6+ Improvements

The Collection 6 (C6) MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) land and atmosphere data sets are scheduled for release in 2014. C6 contains significant revisions of the calibration approach to account for sensor aging. This analysis documents the presence of systematic temporal trends in the visible and near-infrared (500 m) bands of the Collection 5 (C5) MODIS Terra and, to lesser extent, in MODIS Aqua geophysical data sets. Sensor degradation is largest in the blue band (B3) of the MODIS sensor on Terra and decreases with wavelength. Calibration degradation causes negative global trends in multiple MODIS C5 products including the dark target algorithm's aerosol optical depth over land and Ångstrom exponent over the ocean, global liquid water and ice cloud optical thickness, as well as surface reflectance and vegetation indices, including the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and enhanced vegetation index (EVI). As the C5 production will be maintained for another year in parallel with C6, one objective of this paper is to raise awareness of the calibration-related trends for the broad MODIS user community. The new C6 calibration approach removes major calibrations trends in the Level 1B (L1B) data. This paper also introduces an enhanced C6C calibration of the MODIS data set which includes an additional polarization correction (PC) to compensate for the increased polarization sensitivity of MODIS Terra since about 2007, as well as detrending and Terra- Aqua cross-calibration over quasi-stable desert calibration sites. The PC algorithm, developed by the MODIS ocean biology processing group (OBPG), removes residual scan angle, mirror side and seasonal biases from aerosol and surface reflectance (SR) records along with spectral distortions of SR. Using the multiangle implementation of atmospheric correction (MAIAC) algorithm over deserts, we have also developed a detrending and cross-calibration method which removes residual decadal trends on the order of several tenths of 1% of the top-of-atmosphere (TOA) reflectance in the visible and near-infrared MODIS bands B1-B4, and provides a good consistency between the two MODIS sensors. MAIAC analysis over the southern USA shows that the C6C approach removed an additional negative decadal trend of Terra (Delta)NDVI approx.0.01 as compared to Aqua data. This change is particularly important for analysis of vegetation dynamics and trends in the tropics, e.g., Amazon rainforest, where the morning orbit of Terra provides considerably more cloud-free observations compared to the afternoon Aqua measurements.

Terra and Aqua↗

Federated Giovanni

Federated Giovanni is a NASA-funded ACCESS project to extend the scope of the GES DISC Giovanni online analysis tool to 4 other Distributed Active Archive Centers within EOSDIS: OBPG, LP-DAAC, MODAPS and PO.DAAC. As such, it represents a significant instance of sharing technology across the DAACs. We also touch on several sub-areas that are also sharable, such as Giovanni URLs, workflows and OGC-accessible services.

analysis↗

PACE Technical Report Series, Volume 7: Ocean Color Instrument (OCI) Concept Design Studies

Extending OCI hyperspectral radiance measurements in the ultraviolet to 320 nm on the blue spectrograph enables quantitation of atmospheric total column ozone (O3) for use in ocean color atmospheric correction algorithms. The strong absorption by atmospheric ozone below 340 nm enables the quantification of total column ozone. Other applications are possible but were not investigated due to their exploratory nature and lower priority.The first step in the atmospheric correction processing, which converts top-of-the-atmosphere radiances to water-leaving radiances, is removal of the absorbance by atmospheric trace gases such as water vapor, oxygen, ozone and nitrogen dioxide. Details of the atmospheric correction process currently used by the Ocean Biology Processing Group (OBPG) and will be employed for PACE with appropriate modifications, are described by Mobley et al. [2016]. Atmospheric ozone absorbs within the visible to near-infrared spectrum between ~450 nm and 800nm and most appreciably between 530 nm and 650 nm, a spectral region critical for maintaining NASA's chlorophyll-a climate data record and for PACE algorithms planned to characterize phytoplankton community composition and other ocean color products.While satellite-based observations will likely be available during PACE's mission lifetime, the difference in acquisition time with PACE, the coarseness in their spatial resolution, and differences in viewing geometries will introduce significant levels of uncertainties in PACE ocean color data products.

Cetinic, Ivona↗

First Steps in the Creation of a Joint MISR/MODIS Ocean Color Atmospheric Correction Algorithm

We are creating a new algorithm that combines observations from MISR and MODIS (both on the NASA Terra spacecraft) to improve atmospheric correction and coverage for ocean color data products. The algorithm utilizes information rich, multi-angle MISR observations for atmospheric correction, applied to MODIS. Our goal is to produce atmospherically corrected Remote Sensing Reflectance from MODIS with enhanced coverage and accuracy, for input to downstream bio-optical ocean parameter retrieval algorithms.An important aspect of this work is the utilization of multi-angle views of the reflected ocean surface sun glint. Usually, such observations are avoided, since the intensity of the glint overwhelms any contribution from the ocean body. However, MISR's multi-angle observations see varying degrees of glint, which means they can be used to better determine aerosol optical properties (Kaufman et al., 2002, Ottaviani et al., 2013), and to identify surface wind speeds that govern the glint pattern. The latter could be utilized to replace the wind speeds taken from ancillary sources that are currently used to conservatively mask potential glint contamination in MODIS observations.To assess this capability, and to identify the appropriate parameterization, we present an analysis using the Generalized Nonlinear Retrieval Analysis (GENRA, Vukicevic et al., 2009) information content assessment. This technique is also easily modified to act as a Bayesian retrieval algorithm, for which initial results are discussed. Finally, we describe the status of integrating MISR data into the processing capabilities of the Ocean Biology Processing Group (OBPG) at NASA, and show the first ocean color vicarious calibration (Franz et al., 2007) of the MISR instrument.

Knobelspiesse, Kirk↗

Improvements in the on-orbit response versus scan-angle characterization for the MODIS ocean color bands

On-orbit characterization of the response versus scan-angle (RVS) is one of the most challenging aspects of the reflective solar band (RSB) calibration for the MODIS instruments onboard the Terra and Aqua spacecraft. The degradation of the solar diffuser, together with the lack of onboard calibrators (OBCs) to cover additional scan angles, other than the one for the lunar observations, has resulted in the use of Earth view responses from the pseudo-invariant desert sites to track the on-orbit RVS changes. This approach has been implemented in Collection 6 (C6) and C6.1 for bands 1-4, 8 and 9 of both instruments and also band 10 of Terra MODIS. As the missions continue to operate over a decade beyond their designed life and the instrument optics continue to degrade, it is expected that the OBC based RVS currently applied to other bands, specifically the high-gain ocean bands, will be inadequate to maintain the long-term calibration stability. An interband calibration approach is formulated and implemented in this paper. The proposed approach relies on the use of a spectrally matching stable reference band to evaluate the long-term calibration stability of the high-gain ocean bands that typically saturate while viewing the selected calibration deserts. Results from this approach indicate a noticeable drift for Terra MODIS bands 11 and 12 whereas the Aqua bands continue to show excellent temporal stability. These results are consistent with the corrections derived by the NASA Ocean Biology Processing Group (OBPG) and are expected to have minimum impacts on the downstream science products.

MODIS↗