Abstract
Satellite images often feature sun glints caused by the specular reflection of sunlight from water surfaces or from horizontally oriented ice crystals occurring in clouds. Such glints can prevent accurate retrievals of atmospheric and surface properties using existing algorithms, but the glints can also be used to infer more about the glint-causing objects—for example about the microphysical properties and radiative effects of ice clouds. This paper introduces the recently released operational glint product of the Earth Polychromatic Camera (EPIC) onboard the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) spacecraft. Most importantly, the paper describes the algorithm used for generating the key component of the new product: a glint mask indicating the presence of sun glint caused by the specular reflection of sunlight from ice clouds and smooth water surfaces. After describing the glint detection algorithm and glint product, the paper shows some examples of the detected glints and discusses some basic statistics of the glint population in a yearlong dataset of EPIC images. These statistics provide insights into the performance of glint detection and point toward possibilities for using the glint product to gain scientific insights about ice clouds and water surfaces.
Highlights
Sun glints often affect Earth observations taken from a wide range of spacecrafts, for example from the polar-orbiting Terra and Aqua satellites, the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) series, or Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR)
This paper discusses and analyzes publicly available datasets that can be obtained at https://asdc.larc.nasa.gov/project/DSCOVR/ DSCOVR_EPIC_L2_GLINT_01
After outlining the general approach, the paper described the glint detection algorithm in detail—including, the method used for obtaining glint detection thresholds that keep the likelihood of erroneous (“false”) detections below 10%
Summary
Sun glints often affect Earth observations taken from a wide range of spacecrafts, for example from the polar-orbiting Terra and Aqua satellites, the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) series, or Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR).
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