EES Seminar

EES Seminar

Date and Time: Friday, 28 September 2018, 14:00–14:50

Venue: Room C202

Title: Quality Requirements for Acquiring Optical Data to Support Calibration, Validation, and Research (CVR) Exercises

Speaker: Dr. Stanford. B. Hooker (NASA/ Goddard Space Flight Center)

Chair: Koji Suzuki

Abstract: Above- and in-water observations of the apparent optical properties (AOPs) of water masses are collected to support vicarious calibration, algorithm validation, and basic research — hereafter, calibration, validation, and research (CVR) — exercises for remote sensing missions. Although it is perhaps appealing to imagine these activities can be considered distinct and separate, especially from a legacy perspective (e.g., SeaWiFS and OCTS), there are two significant reasons why CVR activities require the same quality metrics during data acquisition for next-generation missions (e.g., PACE and SGLI): a) the underlying NASA Ocean Optics Protocols are essentially the same and are expected to be strictly adhered to; and b) the data is submitted to databases (e.g., SeaBASS) that do not make a distinction as to the original objectives for acquiring the data. Consequently, all optical data are ultimately applied to all three activities and noncompliance to the quality requirements degrades the capabilities of all future users of the data within the global community of practice. This presentation provides the quantitative lessons established by the author who has personally made more than 13,000 above- and in-water discrete optical measurements in the world ocean, and who has designed and co-developed state-of-the-art instruments, as well as data acquisition and processing software.