Biological and biogeochemical processes play critical roles in forming and modulating the ecosystems of both open ocean and coastal environments. Observing and monitoring the spatial and temporal…

This federal contract award, valued at $117,394.09, was granted by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to the Research Foundation of the City University of New York (RFCUNY) to conduct a 2-week field campaign with Korean scientists in the East and Yellow Seas. The purpose is to obtain unique datasets that include both in-situ measurements and geostationary satellite observations from the Korean Geostationary Ocean Color Imager (GOCI) to address key scientific questions related to characterizing a geostationary coastal ocean color sensor. This research supports risk reduction efforts for NASA's planned Geostationary Coastal and Air Pollution Events (GEO-CAPE) mission, which aims to fill temporal gaps in ocean color observations from polar-orbiting satellites. The award does not have a set-aside designation.

Biological and biogeochemical processes play critical roles in forming and modulating the ecosystems of both open ocean and coastal environments. Observing and monitoring the spatial and temporal changes of these environments are important for maintaining the quality of life for everyone on earth. Decades of operation of czcs, seawifs, modis etc. Have demonstrated that sun synchronous ocean color missions can provide excellent observations on longer term (weeks to years) biogeochemical processes, but are unable to detect monitor short term (diurnal to a few weeks) processes, such as the dynamics of algae blooms, tidal dynamics, diurnal changes in photosynthesis, etc. Building on the success of seawifs and modis and following the recommendations of the national research council, NASA is planning a geostationary ocean color satellite system to fill the temporal GAP, with a focus on the coastal regions of the north and south american continents. Due to the unique sampling strategy and sensor target geometry, as well as the demand to address a wide range of challenging scientific questions, the radiometric sensor for GEO cape cannot simply be a duplicate of the historical sensors such as seawifs or modis. In addition to frequent sampling (every hour or better), the GEO cape sensor is required to be able to provide high spatial and high spectral resolution measurements with high signal to noise ratios (SNR). To facilitate the design of such a sensor, a series of field campaigns for risk reduction purposes were carried out in the chesapeake BAY region (2011) and the northern gulf of mexico (2013). These experiments, however, did not include measurements from a geostationary platform such as from the korean geostationary ocean color imager (goci), thus they were unable to address some specific questions related to using data from a sensor in a geostationary orbit to address the dynamics of coastal waters (see science questions 1 through 3 in appendix i). These include: a) can the diurnal changes in sediment resuspension and settling be resolved with hourly satellite normalized water leaving radiance (NLW) data b) can the diurnal dynamics in organic carbon (dissolved and particulate) due to tidal exchanges at land ocean interfaces be resolved in hourly NLW data c) how do particle size, shape and composition impact the ocean BI directional reflectace distribution function (brdf) and in turn the NLW signature at different view angles during a diurnal period d) can diurnal changes in cdom from production and photooxidation be detected with hourly data from a geostationary satellite e) how accurately do the atmospheric properties need to be estimated in order to obtain reliable diurnal NLW from a geostationary satellite f) how does brdf variation in water leaving radiance (LW, w, M2,NM, SR) affect the goci hourly NLW retrievals g) given the spatial and spectral specifications of goci how well can we address the diurnal variation of biogeochemical properties in the coastal oceans. What improvements are needed in future sensors to address coastal dynamics. H) how do geostationary ocean color products compare with both polar orbiting ocean color satellite products and with in situ measurements. I) to what extent can hourly geostationary data improve the estimation of primary productivity to address these questions that are important for characterizing a geostationary coastal ocean color sensor, and to obtain important data for risk reduction of the GEO cape mission, we propose to undertake a 2 week field campaign with korean scientists in the east and yellow seas. There are multiple reasons for conducting this study in coastal waters adjacent to korea. First and foremost, these waters are directly under the field of view (FOV) of goci, the first ever and as yet, only geostationary based ocean color satellite (launched in june 2009) in operation. Thus we will be able to obtain unique datasets that include both in situ measurements a