Welcome to MERMAID, The MEris MAtchup In-situ Database

The MERMAID project aims at making available an easy-to-use centralised database of merged in-situ optical measurements with concurrent MERIS acquisitions to Ocean Colour researchers involved in the MERIS mission. The access is open to the MERIS Validation Team (MVT), the MERIS Quality Working Group (MQWG), and to any independant collaborating Principal Investigator (PI).

The long-term objectives of this database are to:

• Enable the assessment of the MERIS marine Level 2 products delivered by the ENVISAT ground segment.
• Support the monitoring of these MERIS products over the lifetime of the mission by providing a complete temporal coverage of the mission.
• Provide support to atmospheric correction research.
• Support vicarious adjustment of the instrument.

The database contains fully normalised in-situ water leaving reflectances, matched with concurrent and comparable of MERIS L2 products, and includes flags, auxiliary information and the intermediary outputs of the processing. These data make possible the testing of alternative algorithms, and supports product assessment and quality assurance within the framework of calibration and validation. The web interface allows the user to select matchups according their own requirements for site, parameters, flags and statistical screening.

Matchups are made available subject to a strict data access policy, which retains the ownership of the contributing PI to their in-situ data. Data is processed upon receipt of in-situ data from the PI and is uploaded upon completion. More information about the project can be found in the 2nd MERIS/(A)ATSR User Workshop Proceedings (PDF).

The MERMAID database has been initiated by ACRI-ST and is maintained with support of ARGANS Limited in the framework of MERIS calibration and validation activities, with the expertise of the MVT and the MQWG. ACRI-ST lead the MERIS data processing, extraction, merging with in-situ data and web site development. ARGANS lead the in-situ data collation and normalisation, protocols documentation in collaboration with PI, and provide validation reports. PI's are warmly invited to contribute to this central tool in MERIS ocean validation, and are provided with full access to all the matchups and extractions in return. Any enquiries regarding data submission or the database can be made via the address provided below.