In situ determination of the remotely sensed reflectance and the absorption coefficient: closure and inversion

We tested closure between in situ radiometric and absorption coefficient me asurements by using a nearly backscattering-independent remote-sensing refl ectance model that employs the remote-sensing reflectance at three waveleng ths. We show that only a small error is introduced into the closure model w hen the proper functional relationships of f/Q and the backscattering is ta ken to be a constant when using the sea-viewing wide field-of-view sensor w avelengths 443, 490, and 555 nm. A method of inverting the model to obtain the absorption coefficient by use of simple linear spectral relationships o f the absorption coefficient is provided. The results of the model show tha t the independent measurements of reflectance and absorption obtain closure with a high degree of accuracy. (C) 1999 Optical Society of America. OCIS codes: 280.0280, 300.1030, 290.0290, 290.1350.