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Data Processing Notes
VIIRS Near-Real-Time (NRT) products are produced from original IDPS SDR and ancillary data from the Global Forecast System (GFS) model.
VIIRS Science-Quality (SCI) products are produced from recalibrated Ocean Color SDR (OC-SDR) and science quality (reanalysis) ancillary data.
The current data processing versions are NRT_IDPS_V1.21 (forwarding since March 19, 2017) for NRT and SCI_OC04.0_V1.21 (reprocessed in April 2017 and forwarding) for SCI products, respectively. The MSL12 is currently v1.21 and SCI OC SDR is v4.0.
VIIRS NRT products before Feb. 6, 2012 are not reliable or usable due to VIIRS instrument calibration error in IDPS SDR.
The VIIRS nominal center wavelengths (different from the specification) are as follows (units in nm):
M1:410, M2:443, M3:486, M4:551, M5:671, M6:745, M7:862, M8:1238, M10:1601, M11:2257
The details on VIIRS MSL12-NIR water reflectance correction algorithm (BMW) can be found in Jiang and Wang (2014).
VIIRS MSL12-SWIR uses M8 and M10 as the two atmospheric correction bands as described in Wang et al. (2007).
VIIRS chlorophyll-a, Kd(490), Kd(PAR) and nLw(λ) products are post-processed to remove striping as described in
Mikelsons et al. (2014). The destriping software can be downloaded here.
Evaluation Products: The VIIRS PAR algorithm was provided by Robert Frouin and implemented in MSL12 by STAR Ocean Color Research Team;
The VIIRS IOP products are derived using the Quasi-Analytical Algorithm (QAA) from Lee et al. (2002);
The VIIRS OCI Chl-a product is derived using Wang and Son (2016);
The VIIRS QA score is derived based on Wei et al. (2016).
User Specific Products (MSL12-NIR only): The VIIRS Chl-a anomaly was calculated using the 61-day median Chl-a following Stumpf et al. (2003), and we have also added Chl-a anomaly ratio (Chl-a anomaly/61-day median Chl-a).