Simultaneous determination of water-leaving reflectance and aerosol optical thickness from Coastal Zone Color Scanner measurements.

We present an iterative algorithm for the simultaneous determination of water-leaving reflectances and aerosol optical thickness from the total outgoing radiances measured in the Coastal Zone Color Scanner (CZCS) visible and near-infrared channels. Numerical experiments were carried out to investigate the feasibility of the algorithm. The results show that the errors in determined water-leaving reflectance at 0.443 microm are approximately 10% in most cases. The errors in determined water-leaving reflectance at 0.55 microm are in the 4.05-7.2% range. The errors in the simultaneously determined aerosol optical thickness for all CZCS visible and near-infrared channels are less than approximately 10%.