A simulation of radiation imagery for ocean color satellite

The ocean color satellite is mainly applied to measure the water constituents such as chlorophyll, suspended material and yellow substance. The leaving water radiance is very small part of the total radiance arrival at the sensor about 3%-15%,and depends on the properties of the orbit and sensor. Before the satellite is launched on the orbit, it needs to simulate the radiation imagery in order to evaluate the quality and availability of the satellite data. If the parameters of satellite orbit, the properties of sensor as well as the characteristics of the atmosphere and water have been known, the radiation scattered by air molecule and aerosol, reflected solar radiation, water leaving and total radiation arriving at the sensor can be simulated by the models of radiation transfer in the atmosphere, air/water and subsurface water. In this paper, the mechanism, models and procedures of the radiation simulation are first discussed and employed to simulate a series of imageries for the Chinese satellites FY-lA, FY-1B, and ROCSAT-1 (Taiwan, China), and American satellite Ses STAR. Their results show that the solar irradiance arrived at water surface and the sun glitter mainly affect the quality and availability of satellite data, which depend on the orbit properties. Finally, some suggestions are proposed to improve the quality and availability of a:ean color satellite data.