Advances in the on-orbit calibration of SNPP VIIRS for ocean color applications

Robert E. Eplee Jr.; Kevin R. Turpie; Gerhard Meister; Frederick S. Patt; Bryan A. Franz

doi:10.1117/12.2273958

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5 September 2017 Advances in the on-orbit calibration of SNPP VIIRS for ocean color applications

Robert E. Eplee Jr., Kevin R. Turpie, Gerhard Meister, Frederick S. Patt, Bryan A. Franz

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Proceedings Volume 10402, Earth Observing Systems XXII; 1040220 (2017) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2273958
Event: SPIE Optical Engineering + Applications, 2017, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

The NASA Ocean Biology Processing Group (OBPG) has continued monitoring the SNPP VIIRS on-orbit calibration since the derivation of the calibration for Reprocessing 2014.0 of the VIIRS ocean color data set. This paper examines four changes to the on-orbit calibration data processing scheme: the prelaunch counts-toradiance conversion; residual solar beta-angle effects in the solar calibration time series; the impact of additional lunar observations on the solar/lunar time series comparisons; and the necessity of putting calibration epochs into fits of the radiometric time series. Updating the prelaunch counts-to-radiance conversion from a linear function of instrument counts to a temperature-dependent, quadratic function of counts had the primary effect of reducing the observational scatter in the lunar calibration time series. The RMS errors due to residual solar beta angle effects are 0.1% for bands M1 (412 nm), M2 (445 nm), and M5 (672 nm) and less for the other bands. The additional lunar observations show that the slopes of the differences in the lunar and solar radiometric trends change nonlinearly over time. VIIRS bands M1–M11 all show changes in radiometric response trends between late 2014 and early 2015, which can be mitigated with an epoch boundary in the fits to the radiometric response on 1 January 2015. The updated solar calibration time series show RMS residuals per band of 0.05–0.22%. The updated lunar calibration time series shows RMS residuals per band of 0.08–0.27%. The solar and lunar time series show RMS differences of 0.10–0.20%.

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Robert E. Eplee Jr., Kevin R. Turpie, Gerhard Meister, Frederick S. Patt, and Bryan A. Franz "Advances in the on-orbit calibration of SNPP VIIRS for ocean color applications", Proc. SPIE 10402, Earth Observing Systems XXII, 1040220 (5 September 2017); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2273958

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