SeaHawk, with its multispectral HawkEye sensor, is the first dedicated ocean color (OC) non-commercial CubeSat satellite mission in orbit. This mission was designed to demonstrate that a low-cost CubeSat could retrieve high quality, high spatial resolution data from around the world. Here we present the first in-depth assessment of SeaHawk’s performance with respect to 3 other operational OC missions: MODIS-Terra, MODIS-Aqua and VIIRS. We selected 11 locations that represent a variety of optical water types and compared data on days when there were data for all four sensors. For each image of a location, we extracted data from thousands of points selected at random. We selected bands present in all sensors (412nm, 447nm, 488nm, 555nm, 670nm) and compared the matchups at 3 different levels of processing (top of the atmosphere (TOA) reflectance, remote sensing reflectance (R_rs), and chlorophyll-a concentration). We then compared five statistical approaches: root mean square error (RMSE), index of agreement (d), Concordance Correlation Coefficient (CCC), linear regression (R²), and bias. Overall, TOA results show good agreement between HawkEye and all other sensors (irrespective of bands), particularly Terra. R_rs results show band-specific patterns instead of sensor-specific patterns; based on R², CCC, and d, 555nm and 412nm seemed to be the best and worst performing bands. Not all locations show good matchups; discrepancies could be due to a combination of spatial, geophysical, temporal, and technical aspects, e.g. hydrodynamics, time difference, or solar/sensor zenith angle.

Primary Presenter: Md Masud-Ul-Alam, University of georgia (masudocndu@uga.edu)

Authors:

Md Masud-Ul-Alam, University of Georgia  (masudocndu@uga.edu)

Benjamin Lowin, University of Georgia  (ben.lowin@uga.edu)

Gene Feldman, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center  (gene.c.feldman@nasa.gov)

Alan Holmes, SBIG Goleta  (alansbig@gmail.com)

John Morrison, University of North Carolina Wilmington  (morrisonj@uncw.edu)

Liang Hong, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center  (liang.hong@nasa.gov)

Alicia Scott, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center  (alicia.m.scott@nasa.gov)

Philip Bresnahan, University of North Carolina Wilmington  (bresnahanp@uncw.edu)

Sean Bailey, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center  (sean.w.bailey@nasa.gov)

Sara Rivero-Calle, University of Georgia  (rivero@uga.edu)