Preliminary results for SeaWiFS vicarious calibration coefficients in the Baltic Sea

Abstract

The technique of vicarious calibration is used in connection with an atmospheric correction to improve the Sea viewing Wide Field of view Sensor (SeaWiFS) normalized water-leaving radiance by the first determination of mean vicarious calibration coefficients from in situ measurements in the Baltic Sea. A necessary adjustment of the SeaWiFS pre-flight calibration slope was found to be +3.5%, +0.3%, −1.7%, −0.4%, +0.8% and −1.3% for the first six SeaWiFS channels. The derived mean vicarious calibration coefficients are higher than the coefficients in the standard SeaWiFS Data Analysis System (SeaDAS) software but with similar shape and good agreement with other research results. The coefficients were used to obtain better normalized water-leaving radiance from SeaWiFS measurements in the Baltic Sea. The deviations of calculated to measured radiances in the open Baltic Sea are between 3% and 47% in the channels 412 to 670 nm, with the trend of higher deviations in the blue channels. The objective of radiance determination in all SeaWiFS channels with a maximum uncertainty of 5% in clear water regions is probably not reachable in the turbid water of the Baltic Sea.

Acknowledgments

Ocean colour data used in this study were produced by the SeaWiFS Project at Goddard Space Flight Center. The data were received from the Goddard Distributed Active Archive Center under the auspices of NASA. The level 1A SeaWiFS data were kindly provided by Dundee University in Scotland.

Notes

An updated version of a paper originally presented at Oceans from Space ‘Venice 2000’ Symposium, Venice, Italy, 9–13 October 2000.