Spectral reflectance of oceanic whitecaps in the visible and near infrared: Aircraft measurements over open ocean

The spectral reflectance of oceanic whitecaps in the visible and near infra red was derived from aircraft push-broom radiometer observations over the o pen ocean near Toulon, France. Inter-band calibration corrections were perf ormed using spectrally white sun glint reflectance. Whitecap reflectance wa s found to decrease substantially with wavelength in the near infrared, in agreement with other findings in the coastal zone and the open ocean. The s tudy supports previous conclusions regarding the consequences of neglecting the spectral dependence of whitecap reflectance in ocean color algorithms.