Abstract
Spaceborne lidar (light detection and ranging) is a very promising tool for the optical properties of global atmosphere and ocean detection. Although some studies have shown spaceborne lidar’s potential in ocean application, there is no spaceborne lidar specifically designed for ocean studies at present. In order to investigate the detection mechanism of the spaceborne lidar and analyze its detection performance, a spaceborne oceanic lidar simulator is established based on the semianalytic Monte Carlo (MC) method. The basic principle, the main framework, and the preliminary results of the simulator are presented. The whole process of the laser emitting, transmitting, and receiving is executed by the simulator with specific atmosphere–ocean optical properties and lidar system parameters. It is the first spaceborne oceanic lidar simulator for both atmosphere and ocean. The abilities of this simulator to characterize the effect of multiple scattering on the lidar signals of different aerosols, clouds, and seawaters with different scattering phase functions are presented. Some of the results of this simulator are verified by the lidar equation. It is confirmed that the simulator is beneficial to study the principle of spaceborne oceanic lidar and it can help develop a high-precision retrieval algorithm for the inherent optical properties (IOPs) of seawater.
Highlights
The marine ecosystems are extremely complex and play an essential role in the biosphere
The laser pulse goes through absorption and scattering effects by aerosols and clouds in the atmosphere and by water molecules, colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM), total suspended matter (TSM), and phytoplankton in ocean, as well as the refraction and reflection of the air–ocean interface
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Summary
The marine ecosystems are extremely complex and play an essential role in the biosphere. The phytoplankton is at the basis of the marine food web [1], and their annual net photosynthetic carbon fixation is nearly equivalent to that of all terrestrial plants [2,3]. The ocean has been globally monitored by the spaceborne sensors for the past several decades. Passive remote sensing of Ocean Color Radiometry (OCR) has provided a global view of the concentration of phytoplankton total suspended matter, colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM), and so on [4,5,6]. The performance of OCR spaceborne sensors has gradually improved since the launch of the Coastal Zone Color Sensor (in 1978 as a proof-of-concept), which has benefitted from an increased number of detection wavelength bands and improved retrieval algorithms [5]. The observation performance of ocean color measurements should be improved in some aspects such as the retrieval methods, which are highly sensitive to the atmospheric correction errors; the expansion of the temporal and spatial range of observation; the depth-resolved information of the subsurface ocean [7]
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