Marco Talone

Institut de Ciències del Mar · Department of Physical and Technological Oceanography

PETRI-MED: Enhancing marine phytoplankton diversity monitoring in the Mediterranean Preserving biodiversity is crucial for sustaining life on Earth. Unfortunately, it is facing growing threats. Marco Talone and the PETRI-MED Team discuss their objectives for the PETRI-MED project and explain why it is urgently necessary. Marine biodiversity is cruc...

Radiative transfer simulations of measurements performed with the Skylight-Blocked Approach (SBA) for water exhibiting diverse optical properties confirmed the non-negligible impact of the depth z0 of the radiometer shield in the determination of the water-leaving radiance Lw. In particular, results showed that the shield-shaded water volume lowers...

The potential for applying in situ multispectral R_rs data from the Ocean Color component of the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET-OC) to validate satellite derived ocean color hyperspectral R_rs products was investigated in the 400-700 nm interval. The analysis was performed using a comprehensive data set of simulated hypers...

Marine data products from the Ocean and Land Color Instrument (OLCI-A), operated onboard the Copernicus Sentinel 3A satellite, were assessed using in situ reference measurements representative of various European Seas. Results from the evaluation of inherent optical properties indicated substantial accuracy for the satellite derived absorption coef...

The Ocean and Land Color Instruments (OLCI) operated onboard the Copernicus Sentinel-3 satellites are providing globally distributed Ocean Color Radiometry (OCR) data products of relevance for environmental and climate applications. This work summarizes results on the assessment of fundamental OCR data from the Operational Baseline 3 Collection OL_...

Radiometric water products from the Neural Network (NNv2) in the Alternative Atmospheric Correction (AAC) processing chain of Ocean and Land Colour Instruments (OLCI) were assessed over different marine regions. These products, not included among the operational ones, were custom produced from the Copernicus Sentinel-3 OLCI Baseline Collection 3. T...

The quantification of uncertainties affecting satellite ocean color products is a fundamental step to ensure their compliance with mission and science requirements. This work investigated a methodology relying on the use of in situ radiometric data with known uncertainties to determine those affecting matching satellite data. By exploiting in situ...

The Ocean Color component of the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET-OC) supports ocean color related activities such as validation of satellite data products, assessment of atmospheric correction schemes and evaluation of bio-optical models, through globally distributed standardized measurements of water-leaving radiance and aerosol optical depth. In...

The spatial uniformity of the spectral radiance by four commercial flat-field sources relying on white Light-Emitting Diode (LED) technology were investigated in the 400–800 nm spectral range using a hyperspectral radiometer. Results showed that for most of the flat-fields the spatial non-uniformity defined by the standard deviation of radiance dif...

The Three-Component Reflectance Model (3C) was primarily developed to improve the determination of the remote-sensing reflectance (Rrs) from above-water radiometric hyperspectral measurements performed during sub-optimal conditions (i.e., cloudy sky, variable viewing geometry, high glint perturbations, low illumination conditions). In view of furth...

We determined the non-linearity coefficients of RAMSES hyper-spectral radiometers by relying on measurements performed at two distances from a reference source, i.e. d C and , leading to equivalent digital counts in a large portion of the spectrum when doubling the integration time. Results from the proposed two-distance method are comparable to th...

The equivalence of two radiometric methods relying on a single nadir-view optical sensor to determine the water-leaving radiance L W , namely the Single Depth Approach (SDA) and the Sky-Blocked Approach (SBA), was investigated applying identical hyperspectral radiometers operated on the same deployment platform. Values of L W from SDA and SBA measu...

Deployment platforms such as ships, towers or buoys may affect the accuracy of nearby radiometric measurements. Aiming at expanding the know-how on platform perturbations in above-water radiometric measurements, this study investigated the spectral impact of the Acqua Alta Oceanographic Tower (AAOT) on the remote-sensing reflectance RRS as a functi...

The non-linear response of RAMSES hyperspectral radiometers was characterized in the 450 nm–800 nm spectral region. Results indicate inverse proportionality of the non-linearity with the output counts. The departure from linearity is generally within ±1.5% with maxima at the longest wavelengths. Notably, the consistency of results across different...

The effects of non-nadir viewing geometry in above-water radiometry data were investigated using field measurements and two different correction approaches: one centered on chlorophyll-a concentration (Chla) developed for Case-1 waters, and the other relying on seawater inherent optical properties (IOP) proposed for any water type. With specific re...

The spectral resolution requirements for in situ remote sensing reflectance R R S measurements aiming at supporting satellite ocean color validation and System Vicarious Calibration (SVC) were investigated. The study, conducted using sample hyperspectral R R S from different water types, focused on the visible spectral bands of the ocean land color...

The response to temperature of sample hyperspectral radiometers commonly used to support the validation of satellite ocean color data was characterized in the 400-800-nm spectral range. Measurements performed in the 10°-40°C interval at 5°C increments showed mean temperature coefficients varying from -0.04 × 10⁻² (°C)⁻¹ at 400 nm to +0.33 × 10⁻² (°...

The polarimetric characteristics of a class of hyperspectral radiometers commonly applied for above-water radiometry have been investigated by analyzing a sample of sensors. Results indicate polarization sensitivity increasing with wavelength and exhibiting values varying from sensor to sensor. In the case of radiance sensors, the maximum differenc...

This article summarizes some of the activities in which Jordi Font, research professor and head of the Department of Physical and Technological Oceanography, Institut de Ciències del Mar (CSIC, Spanish National Research Council) in Barcelona, has been involved as co-Principal Investigator for Ocean Salinity of the European Space Agency Soil Moistur...

Stray light perturbations are unwanted distortions of the measured spectrum due to the nonideal performance of optical radiometers. Because of this, stray light characterization and correction is essential when accurate radiometric measurements are a necessity. In agreement with such a need, this study focused on stray light correction of hyperspec...

https://www.eurofleets.eu/access/previous-calls/eurofleets2-regional-3-call-results/eurofleets-funded-projects-abstracts/ Black Sea receives drainage from almost one-third of the continental Europe, which includes significant portions of 17 countries, 13 capital cities and some 160 million people. Environmental degradation in the Black Sea is cons...

Remotely sensed measurements acquired by the European Space Agency's Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) satellite are processed in a uniform equal-area grid, the Icosahedral Snyder Equal Area (ISEA) 4H9. Brightness temperature measurements are projected onto that grid (the so-called Level 1C), as well as sea surface salinity and soil moisture...

The accuracy of primary satellite ocean color data products from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer on-board Aqua (MODIS-A) and the Visible/Infrared Imager/Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) is investigated in the Western Black Sea using in situ measurements from the Gloria site included in the ocean color component of the Aerosol Robotic Netw...

The accuracy of primary satellite ocean color data products from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer on-board Aqua (MODIS-A) and the Visible/Infrared Imager/Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), is investigated in the Western Black Sea using in situ measurements from the Gloria site included in the Ocean Color component of the Aerosol Robotic Net...

The European Space Agency Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity mission aims at estimating, over the oceans, sea surface salinity (SSS) with spatial and temporal coverage adequate for large-scale oceanography. Spatiotemporal averaging of the retrieved SSS [level-3 (L3) product] has to be properly performed in order to meet the challenging mission requir...

Mean surface geostrophic ocean currents may be calculated from the Mean Dynamic Topography (MDT), estimated as the difference between a mean sea surface height (MSS) calculated from radar altimeters and a reference geoid height. A review of the most widely used geoids is presented. The difference between the third release of the Gravity field and s...

More than two years of soil moisture data derived from the Advanced SCATterometer (ASCAT) and from the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) radiometer are analysed and compared. The comparison has been performed within the framework of an activity aiming at validating the EUMETSAT Hydrology Satellite Application Facility (H-SAF) soil moisture pr...

The European Remote-sensing Satellite (ERS)-2 scatterometer provides wind retrievals over Ocean. To satisfy the needs of high quality and homogeneous set of scatterometer measurements, the European Space Agency (ESA) has developed the project Advanced Scatterometer Processing System (ASPS) with which a long-term dataset of new ERS-2 wind products,...

The "Lunar Interferometric Radiometer by Aperture Synthesis" (LIRAS) mission is promoted by the Italian Space Agency and is currently in feasibility phase. LIRAS' satellite will orbit around the Moon at a height of 100 km, with a revisiting time period lower than 1 lunar month and will be equipped with: a synthetic aperture radiometer for subsurfac...

To achieve frequent measurements and global coverage of soil moisture (SM), satellite microwave remote sensing has been progressively exploited, representing the perfect complement to in situ measurements. A direct sensitivity to SM exists at microwave bands, where it drives the soil electrical permittivity. Sensors operating in the low-frequency p...

Capability for sea surface salinity observation was an important gap in ocean remote sensing in the last few decades of the 20th century. New technological developments during the 1990s at the European Space Agency led to the proposal of SMOS (Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity), an Earth explorer opportunity mission based on the use of a microwave i...

This paper presents an overview of the evolution of the European Remote-sensing Satellite (ERS)-2 scatterometer mission during the last 16 years, highlighting the changes in both satellite configuration and on-ground data processing algo-rithm. Instrument and on-ground data processor performances and evolutions are analyzed and commented; finally,...

A preliminary attempt of deriving a purely satellite-based Temperature-Salinity (T-S) diagram is presented, with the overall aim of assessing to what extent is possible, and in which geographical areas, to identify and trace water masses by satellite. This has been performed by using recent SMOS and Aquarius satellite SSS products in conjunction wi...

This paper describes the first outcomes of an activity aiming at validating the H-SAF soil moisture products derived from Metop-ASCAT data. For this purpose, an extensive comparison between SMOS and ASCAT derived soil moisture retrievals has been accomplished by considering the 25 km resolution ASCAT products and the SMOS L2 products. Both Europe a...

The importance of long-term, continuous, and homogenous time-series of satellite data is widely accepted and strongly fostered by the international scientific community. The various global projects and initiatives undertaken in the last few years are evidences of that effort. Among those are: the Long Term Data Preservation Working Group [1], the P...

ESA declared the end of the EnviSat mission on 9th May 2012, after 10 years of life (doubling the initial expected 5 years of operations). Monitoring of Near Real Time (NRT) data started in 2003 to assess the quality of measurement and calibration of the EnviSat Radar Altimeter instrument. Since then, NRT data has been stored to build a comprehensi...

This work summarizes the activities carried out by the SMOS (Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity) Barcelona Expert Center (SMOS-BEC) team in conjunction with the CIALE/Universidad de Salamanca team, within the framework of the European Space Agency (ESA) CALIMAS project in preparation for the SMOS mission and during its first year of operation. Under...

Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS), launched on 2 November 2009, is the first satellite mission addressing sea surface salinity (SSS) measurement from space. Its unique payload is the Microwave Imaging Radiometer using Aperture Synthesis (MIRAS), a new two-dimensional interferometer designed by the European Space Agency (ESA) and operating at...

The interests of the scientific community working on the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) ocean salinity level 2 processor definition are currently focused on improving the performance of the retrieval algorithm, which is based on an iterative procedure where a cost function relating models, measurements, and auxiliary data is minimized. For...

SMOS salinity inversion consists of minimizing the residual between measured and modeled brightness temperatures. The minimization procedure is a great challenge and crucial step, but its success depends on the quality of the forward model. Consequently, we present an empirical update of pre-launch L-band emissivity forward models, where the essent...

The Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission launched in November 2009 will provide, for the first time, satellite observations of sea surface salinity (SSS). At level 3 (L3) of the SMOS processing chain, the large amount of SSS data obtained by the satellite will be summarized in gridded products with the aim of synthesizing the information...

Release of SMOS level 2 Ocean Salinity (OS) products to general users. Abstract: This note was first issued in June 2010 as additional information to the release of salinity products to the SMOS Calibration/Validation teams, under request from the SMOS Mission Manager (S. Mecklenburg) to the SMOS Co-Lead Investigator for Ocean Salinity (J. Font). I...

The comparison of satellite ocean colour image studies and hydrographic data has shown a significant relationship between Sea Surface Salinity (SSS) and the absorption coefficient for dissolved and detritus materials. Here, we use this relationship to identify the signal of the Amazon River plume. We collected water samples from the MOC2-Equatorial...

Preliminary results obtained during the commissioning phase of the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission are described, devoting special attention to the characterization of the systematic errors found in the measurements and the corresponding impact in the retrieved salinity product. The identified issues and objectives to consolidate an...

The interest of the scientific community in global climate has been constantly increasing in the last years. Much effort has been