Electronic overshoot and other bias in the CZCS Global Data Set: comparison with ground truth from the subarctic Pacific

Abstract

For an area near Ocean Weather Station P in the eastern subarctic Pacific, in situ observations of surface phytoplankton pigment are compared to pigment concentration estimates from the Coastal Zone Color Scanner (CZCS). CZCS data favourably supplement the in situ data, but a few extreme CZCS estimates have erroneously elevated the temporal composites of the region in the NASA Global Data Set. Effects of CZCS subsampling, atmospheric correction, cloud and systematic error detection on accuracy and variability are examined. For the open ocean, accurate atmospheric correction and detection of cloud contamination are the most important requirements for quantitative application of CZCS data.