Document Type

Article

Publication Date

7-11-2024

Department

Department of Physics

Abstract

The Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) spacecraft drifts about the Lagrangian point ≈ 1.4 − 1.6 × 106 km from Earth, where its Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) observes the entire sunlit face of Earth every 1–2 h. In an attempt to detect “signals,” i.e., longer-term changes and semi-permanent features such as the ever-present ocean glitter, while suppressing geographic “noise,” in this study, we introduce temporally and conditionally averaged reflectance images, performed on a fixed grid of pixels and uniquely suited to the DSCOVR/EPIC observational circumstances. The resulting images (maps), averaged in time over months and conditioned on surface/cover type such as land, ocean, or clouds, show seasonal dependence literally at a glance, e.g., by an apparent extent of polar caps. Clear ocean-only aggregate maps feature central patches of ocean glitter, linking directly to surface roughness and, thereby, global winds. When combined with clouds, these blue planet “moving average” maps also serve as diagnostic tools for cloud retrieval algorithms. Land-only images convey the prominence of Earth’s deserts and the variable opacity of the atmosphere at different wavelengths. Insights into climate science and diagnostic and educational tools are likely to emerge from such average reflectance maps.

Publisher's Statement

Copyright © 2024 Kostinski, Marshak and Várnai. Publisher’s version of record: https://doi.org/10.3389/frsen.2024.1404461

Publication Title

Frontiers in Remote Sensing

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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