Radiometric Characteristics of Geostationary Ocean Color Imager (GOCI) for Land Applications

The GOCI imagery can be an effective alternative to monitor short-term changes over terrestrial environments. This study aimed to assess the radiometric characteristics of the GOCI multispectral imagery for land applications. As an initial approach, we compared GOCI at-sensor radiance with MODIS data obtained simultaneously. Dynamic range of GOCI radiance was larger than MODIS over land area. Further, the at-sensor radiance over various land surface targets were tested by vicarious calibration. Surface reflectance were directly measured in field using a portable spectrometer and indirectly derived from the atmospherically corrected MODIS product over relatively homogeneous sites of desert, tidal flat, bare soil, and fallow crop fields. The GOCI radiance values were then simulated by radiative transfer model (6S). In overall, simulated radiance were very similar to the actual radiance extracted from GOCI data. Normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) calculated from the GOCI bands 5 and 8 shows very close relationship with MODIS NDVI. In this study, the GOCI imagery has shown appropriate radiometric quality to be used for various land applications. Further works are needed to derive surface reflectance over land area after atmospheric correction.