Meris Validation Activities at the Aaot Site

Validation activities for the Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) primary radiometric products were carried out using data collected at the Acqua Alta Oceanographic Tower (AAOT) in the northern Adriatic Sea. The intercomparison between the normalized water leaving radiances LWN computed from atmospherically corrected MERIS data and above water radiometric measurements taken with the SeaPRISM system, have shown an extremely good agreement for three match ups of October 2002. The intercomparison exhibited average absolute differences within 12% largely explained by the uncertainties of the in situ measurements and by the spatial variability characterizing the measurement site. However, even though the results suggest a good performance of the MERIS system (the spectrometer, its absolute calibration and the applied atmospheric correction scheme), any final conclusion cannot be drawn before analyzing a more extended number of match ups.