Quantification of uncertainty caused by geometric location mismatch in the validation of TROPOMI solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence product

Abstract

ABSTRACT Validation of the TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) SIF product is a necessity to evaluate its feasibility in various applications. A few validation works have been conducted through direct comparison with in-situ SIF retrievals or cross-comparison with similar satellite-based SIF or vegetation index (VI) products. Nevertheless, the influence of the geolocation mismatch between the validation pixel and reference data on validation results was never considered. This study, for the first time, quantifies the geolocation shift of the TROPOMI validation pixel based on a geometric location matching method and then the uncertainty caused by the geolocation mismatch. The results indicate that the geolocation shift of the TROPOMI pixel shows large temporal variations, with a standard deviation of 2.30 km and 1.91 km in the across- and along-track directions. The mean shifts are 0.17 km and 0.28 km in the across- and along-track directions respectively, indicating eastward shifts in the across-track direction and northward shifts in the along-track direction in general. More than half (42/54) of the time periods showed relative uncertainty larger than 5%, with the maximum even reaching 55.7%. Hence, the uncertainty caused by geolocation mismatch should be fully considered in the validation of satellite SIF products, especially over heterogeneous surfaces.