Status: this preprint is currently under review for the journal ESSD.
Improved land mask for satellite remote sensing of oceans and inland waters
Karlis Mikelsonsand Menghua Wang
Abstract. We present an improved medium (250 m) spatial resolution land mask based on augmenting earlier results of Mikelsons et al. (2021) (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2021.112356) to reflect recent changes in global water surface coverage. This land mask update is critical for remote sensing of coastal oceans and inland waters as this is the first step to properly identify water pixels from land pixels for satellite data processing. We show that clear sky false color imagery derived for monthly and yearly time periods can be effectively used to identify changes to the surface water coverage. In addition, we also use Sentinel-2 satellite imagery to derive more accurate boundaries of new water bodies with complex geometries. We demonstrate improved coverage from satellite ocean color and inland water property retrievals with the improved land mask, including a range of new inland water bodies, as well as changes to the extent of the existing water bodies. The improved land mask can also be used for remote sensing of land, atmospheric, and cryosphere products.
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NOAA National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service, Center for Satellite Applications and Research, E/RA3, 5830 University Research Court, College Park, MD 20740, USA
Global Science and Technology, Inc., Greenbelt, MD 20770, USA
NOAA National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service, Center for Satellite Applications and Research, E/RA3, 5830 University Research Court, College Park, MD 20740, USA
This work provides an improved medium resolution (~250 m) global land/water mask derived from an earlier data set (doi.org/10.17632/9r93m9s7cw.1), and includes the recent changes in the environment, as well as fixes some artifacts in the earlier data set. It highlights the use of global medium resolution clear sky true and false color imagery to detect changes in global surface water coverage, and helps to improve satellite water color retrievals in many new and recent water bodies.
This work provides an improved medium resolution (~250 m) global land/water mask derived from an...