Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Methods in Oceanography

Rights and Access Note

This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this item in any way that is permitted by copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. Rights assessment remains the responsibility of the researcher. In addition, no permission is required from the rights-holder(s) for non-commercial uses.

Publication Date

1-1-2013

First Page

40

Last Page

51

Volume Number

7

Abstract/ Summary

Developing and validating data records from operational ocean color satellite instruments requires substantial volumes of high quality in situ data. In the absence of broad, institutionally supported field programs, organizations such as the NASA Ocean Biology Processing Group seek opportunistic datasets for use in their operational satellite calibration and validation activities. The publicly available, global biogeochemical dataset collected as part of the two and a half year Tara Oceans expedition provides one such opportunity. We showed how the inline measurements of hyperspectral absorption and attenuation coefficients collected onboard the R/V Tara can be used to evaluate near-surface estimates of chlorophyll-a, spectral particulate backscattering coefficients, particulate organic carbon, and particle size classes derived from the NASA Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer onboard Aqua (MODISA). The predominant strength of such flow-through measurements is their sampling rate-the 375 days of measurements resulted in 165 viable MODISA-to- in situ match-ups, compared to 13 from discrete water sampling. While the need to apply bio-optical models to estimate biogeochemical quantities of interest from spectroscopy remains a weakness, we demonstrated how discrete samples can be used in combination with flow-through measurements to create data records of sufficient quality to conduct first order evaluations of satellite-derived data products. Given an emerging agency desire to rapidly evaluate new satellite missions, our results have significant implications on how calibration and validation teams for these missions will be constructed.

Citation/Publisher Attribution

Werdell, J. P., C. W. Proctor, E. Boss, T. Leeuw, and M. Ouhssain, 2013. Underway sampling of marine inherent optical properties on the Tara Oceans expedition as a novel resource for ocean color satellite data product validation. Methods in Oceanography, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.mio.2013.09.001

Publisher Statement

©2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.

DOI

10.1016/j.mio.2013.09.001

Version

publisher's version of the published document

Share

 

Rights Statement

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted.