Impact of ship on radiometric measurements in the field: a reappraisal via Monte Carlo simulations

The presence of a ship in water disturbs the ambient light field and propagates errors to radiometric measurements. This study investigated the ship perturbation via Monte Carlo simulations with a reflective 3D ship. It is found that the height of ship could cause significant perturbation. However, these perturbations could be compensated by the reflection of the ship’s hull, where such compensations vary from sun angle to hull’s reflectance. Further, as a rule of thumb, to keep the perturbation on water-leaving radiance under ∼3% from an operating ship, a look-up table is generated with the requirements of viewing angle for the radiometers operated at the deck and for the deployment distance of floating and profiling instruments.