Abstract

An ocean atmospheric radiation computation method which determines the lower boundary ocean surface albedo and other radiation components from spectral measurements of upwelling radiance taken from a high altitude platform has been developed. The method was originally used to process multi spectral ocean color scanner data to determine the influence of chlorophyll in the sea on the ratio of upwelling radiance to downwelling irradiance as a function of wavelength. In order to measure very subtle color shifts in the blue-green region the effects of atmospheric radiation on the spectral channels have to be determined correctly. The analysis method can also be used to study atmospheric radiance over the sea by removing the water radiance component.

© 1983 Optical Society of America