Eder Herrera Estrella

Cohort : 1
Level: PhD
Graduation Date:  September 2024
Campus:  CUNY – Graduate Center
Research Theme: Oceans & Coasts

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Eder is a NOAA EPP/MSI Earth System Sciences and Remote Sensing-II Scholar in Cohort 1 at the Graduate Center, CUNY. He is a PhD student majoring in Earth and Environmental Sciences.  His research focuses on uncertainties in the ocean color satellite sensors.  He also looks at the impact of these uncertainties on reflectance spectra in coastal waters

Uncertainties in the Ocean Color satellite sensors and their impact on reflectance spectra in coastal waters.

The proper interpretation of the atmosphere is critical in the process of the derivation of the water leaving radiances from the Ocean Color (OC) imagery for ocean monitoring. For the current sensors like the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), and the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) atmospheric correction procedures include assumptions about the characteristics of atmospheric aerosol. The discrepancies between satellite and AERONET data are usually significant in coastal areas which are primarily due to the more complex vertical changing atmospheres near the coast than in the open ocean, therefore associated with a less accurate atmospheric correction. In-situ data from the AERONET-OC radiometers, different stations around the Northern Hemisphere, are compared to data from the VIIRS, Landsat 8 and OLCI S3A and S3B sensors. A holistic approach is applied by calculating uncertainties to the main components of the atmospheric correction algorithm for the different sensors previously named. Uncertainties are mainly dominated by Rayleigh type components.

Academic Mentor: Alex Gilerson, Ph.D.
NOAA Mentor: Michael Ondrusek, Ph.D. (NESDIS)

NERTO Title: Evaluations of uncertainties of satellite retrievals using AERONET-OC and hyperspectral imaging Virtual NERTO
Year: 2021
NERTO Mentor: Christopher Brown, Ph.D. and Michael Ondrusek, Ph.D.
NERTO Location: National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS)