ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Remote Sens.
Sec. Multi- and Hyper-Spectral Imaging
Volume 6 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/frsen.2025.1550120
Detailed scattering contributions of different ocean water types to multi-angle, polarimetric observations at the top of the atmosphere in the UV-NIR regime
Provisionally accepted
- 1Goddard Institute for Space Studies (NASA), New York, New York, United States
- 2Terra Research Inc, Hoboken, New Jersey, United States
- 3Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics, The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, Columbia University, New York City, New York, United States
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Global retrievals of ocean parameters greatly benefit from spaceborne missions equipped with passive multi-spectral, multi-angle and polarimetric capabilities. Here we present a compendium of advanced radiative transfer simulations of such observations at the top of the atmosphere, where the total reflectance and its polarization counterpart are partitioned among the scattering contributions from the atmosphere, a rough ocean surface, and the ocean body. The focus is on the spectral contributions of different water types in an extensive wavelength range (UV-VIS-NIR), which impact the retrievability of their descriptive parameters. Beside accurately quantifying such contributions for observations in heritage ocean-color bands, the results highlight the detectability of the ocean signal in the total reflectance measured in the UV. Also, polarization signatures emerge for highly-complex waters in the green region of the spectrum and at larger wavelengths. This textbook exercise in radiative transfer provides the basis for a correct interpretation of spaceborne measurements, and can be exploited in studies related to instrument design and spectral information content.
Keywords: Top-of-the-Atmosphere Reflectance, ocean optics, sunglint, remote sensing, polarized reflectance, degree of linear polarization, radiative transfer
Received: 22 Dec 2024; Accepted: 16 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Ottaviani and Chowdhary. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Matteo Ottaviani, Goddard Institute for Space Studies (NASA), New York, New York, United States
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