Level 2 Ocean Color Flags

The table below shows the flags that are used to indicate quality of Level 2 Ocean Color products. Each flag is assigned one of the 32 bits of the l2_flags array.

Some conditions make it impossible to calculate any meaningful Level 2 parameters. These are masked by default and will cause a fill value to be written for the flagged pixel.

Only the highest-quality data is included in globally-binned Level 3 products; flags which will exclude data are listed under "L3 Mask Default".

Bit	Name	Short Description	L2 Mask Default	L3 Mask Default
00	ATMFAIL	Atmospheric correction failure		ON
01	LAND	Pixel is over land	ON	ON
02	PRODWARN	One or more product algorithms generated a warning
03	HIGLINT	Sunglint: reflectance exceeds threshold		ON
04	HILT	Observed radiance very high or saturated	ON	ON
05	HISATZEN	Sensor view zenith angle exceeds threshold		ON
06	COASTZ	Pixel is in shallow water
07	spare
08	STRAYLIGHT	Probable stray light contamination	ON	ON
09	CLDICE	Probable cloud or ice contamination	ON	ON
10	COCCOLITH	Coccolithophores detected		ON
11	TURBIDW	Turbid water detected
12	HISOLZEN	Solar zenith exceeds threshold		ON
13	spare
14	LOWLW	Very low water-leaving radiance		ON
15	CHLFAIL	Chlorophyll algorithm failure		ON
16	NAVWARN	Navigation quality is suspect		ON
17	ABSAER	Absorbing Aerosols determined
18	spare
19	MAXAERITER	Maximum iterations reached for NIR iteration		ON
20	MODGLINT	Moderate sun glint contamination
21	CHLWARN	Chlorophyll out-of-bounds		ON
22	ATMWARN	Atmospheric correction is suspect		ON
23	spare
24	SEAICE	Probable sea ice contamination
25	NAVFAIL	Navigation failure		ON
26	FILTER	Pixel rejected by user-defined filter OR Insufficient data for smoothing filter
27	spare
28	BOWTIEDEL	Deleted off-nadir, overlapping pixels (VIIRS only)
29	HIPOL	High degree of polarization determined
30	PRODFAIL	Failure in any product
31	spare

Level-2 Bit-flip Tool

Use this tool to interactively turn Level 2 flags on or off.