Experimental analysis of the measurement precision of spectral water-leaving radiance in different water types.

The on-water radiometric approach employs a unique provision to obtain water-leaving radiance from nadir (Lw(λ)) which can be used for the calibration of ocean color satellites. In this effort, we address the measurement precision associated with Lw(λ) from a single on-water instrument, which is an important aspect of measurement uncertainty. First, we estimated the precision as the ratio of the standard deviation of the means of repeated measurements to the mean of these measurements. We show that the measurement precision for Lw(λ) is within 2.7-3.7% over 360-700 nm. The corresponding remote sensing reflectance spectra (Rrs(λ)) from the same instrument also exhibit a high precision of 1.9-2.8% in the same spectral domain. These measured precisions of radiance and reflectance over the 360-700 nm range are independent of the optical water type. Second, we quantified the consistency of on-water Lw(λ) and Rrs(λ) from two collocated systems for further insight into their measurement repeatability. The comparison reveals that Lw(λ) measurements in the 360-700 nm agree with each other with an absolute percentage difference of less than 3.5%. The corresponding Rrs(λ) data pairs are subjected to increased differences of up to 8.5%, partly due to variable irradiance measurements (Es(λ)). The evaluation of measurement precision corroborates the reliability of the on-water acquisition of radiometric data for supporting satellite calibration and validation.