STANDARIZING THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL SOLAR IRRADIANCE SPECTRUM FOR CAL/VAL OF GEOSTATIONARY OCEAN COLOR IMAGER (GOCI)

Ocean color remote sensing community currently uses the different solar irradiance spectra covering the visible and near-infrared in the calibration/validation and deriving products of ocean color instruments. These spectra derived from single and / or multiple measurements sets or models have significant discrepancies, primarily due to variation of the solar activity and uncertainties in the measurements from various instruments and their different calibration standards. Thus, it is prudent to examine model-to-model differences and select a standard reference spectrum that can be adopted in the future calibration and validation processes, particularly of the first Geostationary Ocean Color Imager (GOCI) onboard its Communication Ocean and Meterological Satellite (COMS) planned to be launched in 2008. From an exhaustive survey that reveals a variety of solar spectra in the literature, only eight spectra are considered here seeing as reference in many remote sensing applications. Several criteria are designed to define the reference spectrum: i.e., minimum spectral range of 350-1200nm, based completely or mostly on direct measurements, possible update of data and less errors. A careful analysis of these spectra reveals that the Thuillier 2004 spectrum seems to be very identical compared to other spectra, primarily because it represents very high spectral resolution and the current state of the art in solar irradiance spectra of exceptionally low uncertainty ${\sim}0.1%.$ This study also suggests use of the Gueymard 2004 spectrum as an alternative for applications of multispectral/multipurpose satellite sensors covering the terrestrial regions of interest, where it provides spectral converge beyond 2400nm of the Thuillier 2004 spectrum. Since the solar-activity induced spectral variation is about less than 0.1% and a large portion of this variability occurs particularly in the ultraviolet portion of the electromagnetic spectrum that is the region of less interest for the ocean color community, we disregard considering this variability in the analysis of solar irradiance spectra, although determine the solar constant 1366.1 $Wm^{-2}$ to be proposed for an improved approximation of the extraterrestrial solar spectrum in the visible and NIR region.