From PACE to PLACE: Results from the First Months of Land Data Products

Although “land” is not included the acronym for NASA’s Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) satellite, the mission is actively supporting terrestrial science. Two new global, daily product suites were recently released using land data from PACE’s Ocean Color Instrument (OCI). The first, termed SFREFL, is a hyperspectral collection of surface reflectances from the ultraviolet into the shortwave infrared. SFREFL currently employs L2gen for atmospheric correction, ensuring continuity with heritage missions processed by the Ocean Biology Processing Group. ISOFIT is also being considered for use as a standard surface reflectance algorithm. Both algorithms make PACE terrestrial data directly applicable to future hyperspectral missions like SBG, and ease collaboration with current missions producing similar products. The second suite, LANDVI, includes 10 vegetation indices: 6 multispectral (NDVI, EVI, NDWI, NDII, CCI, and NDSI) and 4 which are hyperspectral-enabled, or narrowband (PRI, Car, CIRE, and mARI). Narrowband indices leverage OCI’s unique capabilities to provide previously uncharacterized insights into the status of terrestrial ecosystems across the globe. Having been in production for several months, preliminary results from both SFREFL and LANDVI will be presented here. The integration of these terrestrial products as outputs from PACE positions the mission as pivotal for global environmental monitoring and establishes it as an important part of the terrestrial hyperspectral data record.