ROSACE: A Proposed European Design for the Copernicus Ocean Colour System Vicarious Calibration Infrastructure

• Published in: Remote sensing (Basel, Switzerland) Vol. 12; no. 10; p. 1535
• Main Authors: Antoine, David, Vellucci, Vincenzo, Banks, Andrew C., Bardey, Philippe, Bretagnon, Marine, Bruniquel, Véronique, Deru, Alexis, Hembise Fanton d’Andon, Odile, Lerebourg, Christophe, Mangin, Antoine, Crozel, Didier, Victori, Stéphane, Kalampokis, Alkiviadis, Karageorgis, Aristomenis P., Petihakis, George, Psarra, Stella, Golbol, Melek, Leymarie, Edouard, Bialek, Agnieszka, Fox, Nigel, Hunt, Samuel, Kuusk, Joel, Laizans, Kaspars, Kanakidou, Maria
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 01-05-2020; MDPI
• Subjects: Accuracy; Calibration; Climate change; Collaboration; Color; Community involvement; Community participation; Consortia; Design; Earth Sciences; Environmental monitoring; fiducial reference measurements; Infrastructure; Instrumentation and Detectors; Marine environment; Meteorological satellites; Oceanography; Physics; Quality; Radiometry; Remote sensing; Research facilities; Research institutions; satellite ocean colour; Satellites; Sciences of the Universe; Sensors; SI-traceability; system vicarious calibration; uncertainty budget; satellite ocean colour; uncertainty budget; system vicarious calibration; MSEA; radiometry; fiducial reference measurements; Mediterranean Sea; BOUSSOLE; SI-traceability
• ISSN: 2072-4292; 2072-4292
• DOI: 10.3390/rs12101535

The European Copernicus programme ensures long-term delivery of high-quality, global satellite ocean colour radiometry (OCR) observations from its Sentinel-3 (S3) satellite series carrying the ocean and land colour instrument (OLCI). In particular, the S3/OLCI provides marine water leaving reflectance and derived products to the Copernicus marine environment monitoring service, CMEMS, for which data quality is of paramount importance. This is why OCR system vicarious calibration (OC-SVC), which allows uncertainties of these products to stay within required specifications, is crucial. The European organisation for the exploitation of meteorological satellites (EUMETSAT) operates the S3/OLCI marine ground segment, and envisions having an SVC infrastructure deployed and operated for the long-term. This paper describes a design for such an SVC infrastructure, named radiometry for ocean colour satellites calibration and community engagement (ROSACE), which has been submitted to Copernicus by a consortium made of three European research institutions, a National Metrology Institute, and two small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). ROSACE proposes a 2-site infrastructure deployed in the Eastern and Western Mediterranean Seas, capable of delivering up to about 80 high quality matchups per year for OC-SVC of the S3/OLCI missions.