Colloquium: Prof. Menghua Wang, NOAA

TITLE: Satellite Ocean Color Remote Sensing: VIIRS Ocean Color Products ABSTRACT: The Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (SNPP) has been successfully launched on October 28, 2011. The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) onboard the Suomi NPP, which has 22 spectral bands (from visible to infrared) similar to the NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), is a multi-disciplinary sensor providing observations for the Earth’s atmosphere, land, and ocean properties. There will be at least two more VIIRS sensors on the NOAA Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) (JPSS-1 and JPSS-2), with JPSS-1 launch date around 2017. In this presentation, I will start with overview of satellite ocean color remote sensing, i.e., some basic idea and concept for remote sensing of ocean optical, biological, and biogeochemical properties (e.g., atmospheric correction, sensor on-orbit calibration, bio-optical algorithms, etc.). I will provide some examples for various applications using satellite ocean color products. In particular, some ocean color results using the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS) (1997-2011) and MODIS on the satellite Aqua (2002-present) will be presented and discussed. I will then provide some detailed discussions about ocean color products derived from VIIRS (the end-to-end system), including data processing from satellite-measured Level-0 (raw data) to Level-1B (sensor calibrated data), and Level-1B to Level-2 ocean color products, as well as to Level-3 global ocean color products (daily, 8-day, and monthly). Specifically, VIIRS ocean color data processing algorithms and current ocean color data quality will be reviewed and discussed. Our validation efforts for VIIRS ocean color products will be outlined. In addition, some applications using VIIRS ocean color products will also be presented.