The Copernicus Program has been established through the Regulation EU No377/2014 with the objective to ensure long-term and sustained provision of accurate and reliable data on environment and security through dedicated services. Among these, the Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service and the marine component of the Climate Change Service, both rely on satellite ocean colour observations delivering data on water quality and climate relevant quantities such as chlorophyll-a concentration used as a proxy for phytoplankton biomass.
This Report, building on the long-standing experience of the JRC on ocean colour, summarizes a number of recent investigations essential to assess the fitness-for-purpose of Copernicus ocean colour data products. These investigations embrace:
i. The accuracy of radiometry data from the Ocean and Land Colour Instrument (OLCI) on board Sentinel-3a. The assessment is performed relying on geographically distributed in situ reference measurements from autonomous systems and dedicated oceanographic campaigns.
ii. Uncertainty analysis of ocean colours radiometry data from a number of international missions. The analysis aims at assessing the potentials for the construction of Climate Data Records (CDRs) from independent missions.
iii. The impact of adjacency effects in coastal data limiting the accuracy of ocean colour radiometry products. The study relies on state-of-the-art radiative transfer simulations and aims at quantifying adjacency effects in space data from sensors exhibiting different signal-to-noise ratios.
iv. Uncertainties affecting in situ radiometry data as a result of the lack of comprehensive characterizations of field instruments. This is an attempt to illustrate the fundamental importance of comprehensive radiometric calibrations and characterizations for in situ instruments supporting validation activities.
v. Reproducibility of the experimental determination of pigments concentrations for the validation of satellite data products. The analysis documents the differences affecting the quantification of pigments concentrations through the applicationJRC.D.2-Water and Marine Resource
