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A Chinese Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (CMODIS) on "Shenzhou-3" spaceship was launched on March 25, 2002. CMODIS has 34 channels, with 30 visible and near-infrared channels and 4 infrared channels. The 30 channels are 20nm width with wavelength ranging from 403nm to 1023nm. The radiance calibration of CMODIS was finished in the laboratory measurements before it was launched and the laboratory calibration coefficients were used to calibrate the CMODIS raw data. Since none of on-board radiance absolute calibration devices including internal lamps system and calibration system which is based on solar reflectance and lunar irradiance were installed with the sensor, how about the accuracy of CMODIS-measured radiance is a key question for the remote sensing data processing and ocean applications. A new model was developed as a program to evaluate the accuracy of calibrated radiance measured by CMODIS at the top of the atmosphere (TOA). The program can compute the Rayleigh scattering radiance and aerosol scattering radiance together with the radiance component from the water-leaving radiance to deduce the total radiance at TOA under some similar observation conditions of CMODIS. Both the multiple-scattering effects and atmosphere absorbing effects are taken into account on the radiative transfer model to improve the accuracy of atmospheric scattering radiances. The model was used to deduce the spectral radiances at TOA and compared with the radiances measured by Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS) to check the performance of the model, showing that the spectral radiances from the model with small differences from those of SeaWiFS. The spectral radiances of the model can be taken as reference values to evaluate the accuracy of CMODIS calibrated radiance. The relative differences of the two radiances are large from 16% to 300%, especially for CMODIS at the near-infrared channels with more than one time larger than those of the model. It is shown that the calibration coefficients from the laboratory measurements are not reliable and the radiance of CMODIS needs to be recalibrated before the data are used for oceanography applications. The results show that the model is effective in evaluating the CMODIS sensor and easily to be modified to evaluate other kinds of ocean color satellite sensors.
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