UC Santa Cruz

Standard ocean chlorophyll-a (Chla) products from currently operational satellite sensors Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Aqua and Visible Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) underestimate medium and high in situ Chla concentrations and have approximately 9% bias between each other in the California Current. By using the regional optimization approach of Kahru et al., we minimized the differences between satellite estimates and in situ match-ups as well as between estimates of the two satellite sensors and created improved empirical algorithms for both sensors. The regionally optimized Chla estimates from MODIS-Aqua and VIIRS have no bias between each other, have improved retrievals at medium to high in situ Chla, and can be merged to improve temporal frequency and spatial coverage and to extend the merged time series.