Global Patterns of Pigment Concentration, Cloud Cover, and Sun Glint: Application to the OSMI Data Collection Planning

To establish a monthly data collection planning for the Ocean Scanning Multispectral Imager (OSMI), we have examined the global patterns of three impacting factors: pigment concentration, cloud cover, and sun glint. Other than satellite mission constraints (e.g., duty cycle), these three factors are considered critical for the OSMI data collection. The Nimbus-7 Coastal Zone Color Scanner (CZCS) monthly mean products and the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) monthly mean products (C2) were used for the analysis of pigment concentration and cloud cover distributions, respectively. And the monthly simulated patterns of sun glint were produced by performing the OSMI orbit prediction and the calculation of sun glint radiances at the top-of-atmosphere (TOA). Using monthly statistics (mean and/or standard deviation) of each factor in the above for a given 10$^{\circ}$ latitude by 10$^{\circ}$ longitude grid, we generated the priority map for each month. The priority maps of three factors for each month were subsequently superimposed to visualize the impact of three factors in all. The initial results illustrated that a large part of oceans in the summer hemisphere was classified into the low priority regions because of seasonal changes of clouds and sun illumination. Sensitivity tests were performed to see how cloud cover and sun glint affect the priority determined by pigment concentration distributions, and consequently to minimize their seasonal effects upon the data collection planning.