Statistical Evaluation of Sentinel-3 OLCI Ocean Color Data Retrievals

• Published in: IEEE transactions on geoscience and remote sensing Vol. 60; pp. 1 - 19
• Main Authors: Mikelsons, Karlis, Wang, Menghua, Kwiatkowska, Ewa, Jiang, Lide, Dessailly, David, Gossn, Juan Ignacio
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 2022; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Baseline studies; Data analysis; Data processing; European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT); European Space Agency (ESA); Exploitation; Glint; Image color analysis; Meteorological satellites; Multi-Sensor Level-1 to Level-2 (MSL12); National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA); Ocean and Land Colour Instrument (OLCI); Ocean color; ocean color remote sensing; Ocean colour; Oceans; Ozone; Parameters; Performance evaluation; Reflectance; Reflectivity; Satellite broadcasting; Sea level; Sea measurements; Sea surface; Sensors; Spectra; Stability analysis; Statistical methods; Statistics; Surface wind; Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS); Water vapor; Water vapour; Wind speed
• ISSN: 0196-2892; 1558-0644
• DOI: 10.1109/TGRS.2022.3226158

We employ a previously developed statistical method to evaluate the performance of the Sentinel-3 Ocean and Land Colour Instrument (OLCI) global ocean color data relying on the temporal stability of the retrievals. We analyze the normalized water-leaving reflectance <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">\rho _{\mathrm {wN}}(\lambda) </tex-math></inline-formula> spectra generated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Multi-Sensor Level-1 to Level-2 (MSL12) ocean color data processing system from the OLCI measurements and the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT)-Instrument Processing Facility for OLCI Level-2 (IPF-OL-2) OLCI reflectance <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">\rho _{\mathrm {wN}}(\lambda) </tex-math></inline-formula> spectra. The deviations in <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">\rho _{\mathrm {wN}}(\lambda) </tex-math></inline-formula> spectra from temporally and spatially averaged baseline data are statistically evaluated corresponding to various parameters, including the solar-sensor geometry, various ancillary data (i.e., surface wind speed, sea-level atmospheric pressure, water vapor amount, and ozone concentration), and other related parameters. Our results show that, under most conditions, both NOAA-MSL12 and EUMETSAT-IPF-OL-2 data processing systems produce statistically consistent ocean color products in the open ocean with respect to all corresponding parameters analyzed but with some underestimates of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">\rho _{\mathrm {wN}}(\lambda) </tex-math></inline-formula> spectra by EUMETSAT retrievals in moderate sun glint conditions being the notable exception.