MNF Equipment Register - Equipment Details

The DALEC (Dynamic Above Water Radiance and Irradiance Collector) is an autonomous sea-going hyperspectral radiometer designed to continuously measure above water ocean reflectance during ship transit. It measures light in visible wavelengths coming from the sea and sky. It is effectively recording the same data that ocean colour satellites do, but at more wavelengths, and observing a smaller footprint (2 m diameter vs 4 km width of a satellite pixel). Because the Southern Ocean is so cloudy, it is hard to get lots of satellite data to match up to observations we make in water or with samples we collect. This provides us with a semi-continuous ‘satellite record’ that we can use to test, compare and improve satellite algorithms.