Airborne measurements of the linear polarization state of light were carried out over coastal and open ocean conditions to study aerosol and water column properties and investigate the possibility of using a multi-spectral, hyper-angular imaging polarimeter for retrieving aerosol and hydrosol optical properties. The instrument, the Versatile Imager for the Coastal Ocean (VICO), is used to support the analysis of ocean color polarized observations and their implication for future space-borne polarimetry such as the polarimeters planned to be deployed with the NASA Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, and ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission. Several sets of images at different viewing angles from the visible to the near-infrared spectrum were collected and compared with simulations using a vector radiative transfer (VRT) code. The simulations were obtained based on measured seawater inherent optical properties from shipborne instruments and measured atmospheric parameters from the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) and a shipborne sunphotometer at different locations. An uncertainty method has been derived by propagating uncertainties from the measured polarized radiances. The method demonstrates practicable uncertainty formulations that can be used to construct a measurement uncertainty budget for the polarized data products. Results from VICO and the VRT simulation are consistent for both radiance and polarization spectrum at all the measured viewing angles. The total and polarized water-leaving reflectances are retrieved at four bands and varied geometries. It is also shown that the polarized remote sensing reflectance measured at various angles could be used to distinguish between the aerosols’ and hydrosols’ optical signatures by exploiting the fact that the polarized reflectance is fairly insensitive to hydrosols for given acquisition geometries. This study thus provides an opportunity to investigate various relationships between the microphysical properties of the oceanic and atmospheric particulates such as refractive index and particle size properties. It also contributes to the development of polarization-based inverse ocean color algorithms. Finally, the provided analysis gives insights for the validation of the ocean color parameters that will be retrieved from the forthcoming polarimetric satellite missions.

在沿海和公海条件下进行了光的线性偏振态的机载测量，以研究气溶胶和水柱特性，并研究使用多光谱，超角度成像旋光仪获取气溶胶和水溶胶光学特性的可能性。该仪器是用于沿海海洋的多功能成像仪（VICO），用于支持对海洋颜色偏振观测的分析及其对未来星载偏振的意义，例如计划与NASA浮游生物，气溶胶，云计算一起部署的偏振计。 ，以及海洋生态系统（PACE）任务。收集了从可见光谱到近红外光谱处于不同视角的几组图像，并将其与使用矢量辐射传输（VRT）代码的模拟进行了比较。这些模拟是基于船用仪器测量的海水固有光学特性以及气溶胶机器人网络（AERONET）和船用日光计在不同位置测得的大气参数而获得的。通过从测得的极化辐射传播不确定性，得出了不确定性方法。该方法演示了实用的不确定性公式，可用于构建极化数据产品的测量不确定性预算。VICO和VRT模拟的结果在所有测量视角下的辐射光谱和偏振光谱均一致。在四个波段和不同的几何形状下获取总的和偏振的离开水的反射率。还显示了通过利用在给定的采集几何形状下偏振反射率对水溶胶相当不敏感的事实，可以将在各种角度下测量的偏振遥感反射率用于区分气溶胶和水溶胶的光学特征。因此，这项研究提供了一个机会来研究海洋和大气微粒的微物理性质之间的各种关系，例如折射率和粒度性质。它还为基于极化的逆海洋颜色算法的发展做出了贡献。最后，所提供的分析为验证将从即将到来的极化卫星任务中检索到的海洋颜色参数提供了见识。