A12A-05:
Initial Results from Observations Made by the Research Scanning Polarimeter (RSP) During the Ship-Aircraft Bio-Optical Research (SABOR) Experiment
Monday, 15 December 2014: 11:20 AM
Brian Cairns1, Jacek Chowdhary2, Chris A Hostetler3, Johnathan W Hair3, Yongxiang Hu3, Carolyn F Butler4, Kathleen A Powell5, Richard Anthony Ferrare3, Sharon P Burton3, Alexander Gilerson6 and Ivona Cetinic7, (1)NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, NY, United States, (2)Columbia University of New York, Palisades, NY, United States, (3)NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA, United States, (4)Science Systems and Applications Inc., Hampton, VA, United States, (5)NASA, Hampton, VA, United States, (6)City College of New York, New York, NY, United States, (7)University of Maine, Walpole, ME, United States
Abstract:
The SABOR experiment was composed of the ocean going research vessel (R/V) Endeavor with a wide range of ocean optics, chemistry, ecology and polarimetric observations and the NASA Langley Research Center UC-12 aircraft operating a high spectral resolution lidar (HSRL1) and the Research Scanning Polarimeter (RSP). The HSRL1 resolves vertical variations in scattering by phytoplankton in the water column and profiles of extinction by aerosols in the atmosphere, in addition to measuring intensive aerosol properties that can be used to identify the types of aerosols that are present. The RSP measures the intensity and linear polarization of reflected sunlight in nine spectral bands from 410 to 2264 nm at multiple viewing angles. These measurements can be used to retrieve aerosol and cloud properties and also the near surface chlorophyll concentration [Chl]. While the aircraft observations during SABOR provided the capability for rapidly surveying variations in ocean particulate scattering and near surface [Chl], they can not match the detail or system context provided by measurements made on the R/V Endeavor. Ship based measurements quantified not only the standing stocks of ocean particles, but rates of phytoplankton productivity, speciation of the phytoplankton community, and characteristics of other in-water absorbing materials. The two measurement platforms therefore complement one another, with the R/V Endeavor measurements providing evaluation and validation of the remote sensing products in addition to their own unique scientific value. In this paper we will present a survey of the ocean, aerosol and cloud products retrieved from the RSP observations and some initial inter-comparisons with the observations made by the HSRL1 and on the R/V Endeavor.
