The use of MODIS 250 m bands to improve the MODIS 1 km ocean color atmospheric correction algorithm in turbid water

“Clear water” is a scale-dependent concept, so it is more likely to successfully find the “clear water” from images with smaller scale than that with larger scale data. In this study, an optimal spectral relationship of moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) 250 m and 1 km resolution data at near-infrared bands (OSRLM) is constructed for converting pseudo “clear water” reflectance at 859 nm to those at 748 and 869 nm. According to scale effects, the satellite-observed pseudo “clear water” reflectance is greater than 5.18%, larger than that derived from OSRLM model. An atmospheric correction model for MODIS 1km data using pseudo “clear water” reflectance of MODIS 250 m data (ACMM) was developed for improving the performance of traditional “clear water” atmospheric correction model (CWAC). The model validation results indicate that ACMM model has a better performance than CWAC model. By comparison, the uncertainty decreases by 19.18% in the use of ACMM model over CWAC model for deriving water-leaving reflectance in Taihu Lake, China. This uncertainty is significantly reduced in water-leaving reflectance estimation due to partial removal of scale effects on “clear water”. These findings imply that satellite-derived aerosol scattering contribution at smaller scale usually has a better performance than that at larger scale.