VIIRS-NPP Reprocessing 2012.1

1. Introduction

An effort is currently underway to assess the capacity of the VIIRS instrument to support NASA Ocean Biology and Biogeochemistry Program science (e.g., Turpie et. al 2012). The NASA Ocean Biology Processing Group (OBPG) is applying calibration methods and algorithms based on lessons learned from SeaWiFS and MODIS with the goal of producing a suite of ocean color products from VIIRS that are consistent in content, format, and quality with heritage sensors. These products are being distributed as evaluation products for assessment by the NPP Science Team and the research community. A detailed discussion on the differences between NASA products and the operational VIIRS ocean color products produced by NOAA is provided in the documentation for the initial NASA VIIRS processing (2012.0).

The 2012.1 reprocessing is a partial mission preprocessing spanning the period from May 2012 to present. The only change is an update to the instrument calibration model, to better capture the trends in the temporal calibration as derivec from solar diffuser measurements.

2. Results

The figures below show the impact of this change on the derived ocean color time-series. The plots were derived from weekly composites averaged over all deep water (depth > 1000m).

3. Additional Information

1. Documentation of NOAA operational algorithms and product formats

2. Access to NOAA operational data distribution (CLASS)

3. Eplee et al. 2012 paper on NASA VIIRS instrument calibration approach