Validation of the Copernicus Sentinel-2 Level-2A Products

Kurzfassung

The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission is based on a constellation of three polar-orbiting satellites that are positioned in the same sun-synchronous orbit, with a phase difference of 0° (Sentinel-2C), 180° (Sentinel-2B) and 144° (Sentinel-2A). Since 2015, this mission has been capturing images of the earth with an optical imaging sensor Multi-Spectral Instrument (MSI). The datasets are openly available to public and users have been using these images for land cover change observations related to agriculture, forestry, urban, rural, and coastal areas, that is also useful for risk and disaster mapping. Sen2cor is the processing tool implemented to apply atmospheric corrections of the Level-1C (L1C) Top-of-Atmosphere products and produce Level-2A (L2A) products, providing Surface Reflectance (SR) products together with Aerosol Optical Thickness (AOT), Total Column Water Vapour (WV) and Scene Classification (SCL) maps. This contribution will show the L2A product validation of the SCL cloud masking, AOT, WV, and SR. The performance of the SCL cloud masking was assessed with visually-labeled reference data. The accuracy of the AOT and WV products were assessed with reference measurements from Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) stations. BOA SR retrievals were estimated with ground reference data provided by independent measurements such as Radiometric Calibration Network (RadCalNet) and HYPERNETS.