AVS 50th International Symposium
    Technology for Sustainability Thursday Sessions
       Session AT-ThA

Paper AT-ThA2
SeaWiFS Land and Ocean Vegetation Measurements - A Six-year Set of Climate Change Records

Thursday, November 6, 2003, 2:20 pm, Room 320

Session: Science and Technology Related to Global Effects: Emissions, Climate, and Transport
Presenter: R.A. Barnes, Science Applications International Corporation and SeaWiFS Project
Correspondent: Click to Email
SeaWiFS (the Sea-Viewing Wide Field-of-View Sensor) was launched in August 1997. It commenced on-orbit operations in September 1997 and continues to make images of the Earth surface at a 1 km areal resolution to this day. The SeaWiFS data set currently contains two transitions of the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). With an electronic design that includes bi-linear gains, SeaWiFS makes measurements of both the dark ocean and the much brighter surface of the land. As a result, SeaWiFS provides the first truly global measurement set of vegetation changes from a single instrument. SeaWiFS also provides a baseline for one of the multi-decadal climate change data sets proposed by NASA. This data set includes Earth surface measurements from the MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) sensors currently flying onboard the Terra and Aqua spacecraft and from the VIIRS (Visible and Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) instrument to be flown onboard the NPP (NPOESS Preparatory Program) spacecraft, which is currently scheduled for launch in 2007. Subsequent VIIRS instruments are planned to be flown for several decades into the future, as part of NPOESS (the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System). For ocean vegetation measurements in particular, the requirements for the Climate Data Records (CDRs) include extensive calibration/validation and atmospheric correction programs, since approximately 90% of the top-of-the-atmosphere radiance measured by the satellite instruments comes from the atmosphere.