Franz, Bryan: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (Project Lead)
Project Funding:
2015 - 2019
NRA: 2014 NASA: Earth Science U.S. Participating Investigator
Funded by NASA
Abstract:
The Japanese Global Climate Observation Mission (GCOM-C) is a series of three satellites designed to measure the surface and atmospheric properties of the Earth over a 13 year period. The first GCOM-C satellite (C1) is to be launched by JAXA in early 2017 (Figure 1) and will carry the Second-generation GLobal Imager (SGLI). SGLI is an ultraviolet to infrared multi-channel radiometer that has the capability to measure ocean color on global scales. Ocean color is the spectral distribution of upwelling visible light that exits the ocean surface, which can be used to quantify constituent concentrations in the water column such as the near surface concentration of chlorophyll-a, a proxy for phytoplankton biomass. This proposal seeks to integrate SGLI data into the on-going development of a long-term, multi-sensor climate data record for ocean color. Based on specifications (Figure 2), SGLI measurements are expected to be comparable or superior in spatial and spectral characteristics to current and heritage NASA ocean color sensors such as NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradimeters (MODIS) currently flying on the Terra (1999-present) and Aqua (2002-present) spacecraft, the Visible and Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the NPP platform (2011-present), and the Sea-viewing Wide Field- of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS) that provided global observations of the worlds oceans from 1997 to 2010. The PI and Co-I lead key elements of NASA's Ocean Biology Processing Group (OBPG), which is responsible for calibration, processing, and distribution of all NASA ocean color data, and also maintains and distributes consistently processed ocean color products from the European Medium Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MERIS) instrument (2002-2011) and the Japanese Ocean Color and Temperature Scanner (OCTS) instrument (1996-1997).
For the SGLI mission, we propose to:

1) implement support for SGLI standard ocean color products of JAXA within NASA’s widely used, freely distributed ocean color data analysis and visualization software tool (SeaDAS, http://seadas.gsfc.nasa.gov/).
2) implement support for SGLI into NASA’s multi-sensor ocean color processing software, a component of SeaDAS, which will enable the Earth Science research community to process observed SGLI radiances to geophysical ocean color products using algorithms and data formats consistent with the VIIRS, MODIS, MERIS, and SeaWiFS products currently distributed by NASA.
3) develop vicarious calibration of SGLI using the same approach and calibration sources used for all NASA sensors.
4) implement support for SGLI into NASA’s automated in situ validation system for ocean color (SeaBASS, http://seabass.gsfc.nasa.gov/) and the associated validation search system (http://seabass.gsfc.nasa.gov/seabasscgi/beta/search.cgi), and perform validation assessments.
5) perform timeseries comparison of SGLI standard products, SGLI products processed with NASA standard algorithms, and coincident products from MODIS and/or VIIRS, with the goal of improving or developing consensus between SGLI and NASA standard ocean color algorithms, assessing issues in temporal and spatial stability among all sensors, and quantifying geographic and temporal differences between the datasets.
More details may be found in the following project profile(s):
