Satellite ocean colorand aerosolvalidation at Martha'sVineyardCoastal Observatory

Optical complexity inboththewaterandtheoverlying atmosphere often leads toerrorinremotely-sensed oceancolor products inthecoastal zone.A knownbutpoorly understood errorsource isthenearshoreatmospheric correction algorithm. Dedicated tothecoastal oceancolor validation, anautomatic above-water radiance measurement system, namedtheSeaWiFS Photometer Revision forIncident SurfaceMeasurements (SeaPRISM) prototyped attheAcquaAltaOceanographic Tower inthenorthAdriatic seaIll, hasbeendeployed attheAir-Sea Interaction TowerofMartha's Vineyard Coastal Observatory (MVCO)since February 2004.Thispaperdescribes theMVCO oceancolorvalidation programandpresent a preliminary assessment ofmarine andatmospheric products fromthesatellite oceancolorsensorMODIS on theAQUA satellite using SeaPRISMobservations. Assessment focuses on normalized water-leaving radiance and aerosol optical properties with nearly-simultaneous insitu andsatellite retrievals (match-ups). Twoyearsofobservation indicate thevalueofthisSeaPRISM measurement station tocoastal satellite oceancolor validation efforts. Keywords-Oceancolor,remotesensing, aerosoloptical thickness, normalized water-leaving radiance, sunphotometer.