scholarly journals New Approach for Temporal Stability Evaluation of Pseudo-Invariant Calibration Sites (PICS)

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 1502 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fatima Tuz Zafrin Tuli ◽  
Cibele Teixeira Pinto ◽  
Amit Angal ◽  
Xiaoxiong Xiong ◽  
Dennis Helder

Pseudo-Invariant Calibration Sites (PICS) are one of the most popular methods for in-flight vicarious radiometric calibration of Earth remote sensing satellites. The fundamental question of PICS temporal stability has not been adequately addressed. However, the main purpose of this work is to evaluate the temporal stability of a few PICS using a new approach. The analysis was performed over six PICS (Libya 1, Libya 4, Niger 1, Niger 2, Egypt 1 and Sudan 1). The concept of a “Virtual Constellation” was developed to provide greater temporal coverage and also to overcome the dependence limitation of any specific characteristic derived from one particular sensor. TOA reflectance data from four sensors consistently demonstrating “stable” calibration to within 5%—the Landsat 7 ETM+ (Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus), Landsat 8 OLI (Operational Land Imager), Terra MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) and Sentinel-2A MSI (Multispectral Instrument)–were merged into a seamless dataset. Instead of using the traditional method of trend analysis (Student’s T test), a nonparametric Seasonal Mann-Kendall test was used for determining the PICS stability. The analysis results indicate that Libya 4 and Egypt 1 do not exhibit any monotonic trend in six reflective solar bands common to all of the studied sensors, indicating temporal stability. A decreasing monotonic trend was statistically detected in all bands, except SWIR 2, for Sudan 1 and the Green and Red bands for Niger 1. An increasing trend was detected in the Blue band for Niger 2 and the NIR band for Libya 1. These results do not suggest abandoning PICS as a viable calibration source. Rather, they indicate that PICS temporal stability cannot be assumed and should be regularly monitored as part of the sensor calibration process.

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (19) ◽  
pp. 2187 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee ◽  
Meister ◽  
Franz

Remote-sensing ocean color products have stringent requirements on radiometric calibration stability. To address a calibration deficiency in Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Aqua in recent years, the NASA Ocean Biology Processing Group (OBPG) developed a new calibration for reflective solar bands. Prior to the reprocessing of NASA’s ocean color products for 2018 (R2018), the OBPG MODIS products had been based on calibration provided by the MODIS Calibration Support Team (MCST). Several modifications were made to the MCST calibration approach to improve the calibration accuracy for ocean color products. These include 1) applying 936-nm detector normalization to solar diffuser stability monitor (SDSM) data to reduce coherent noise; 2) modeling solar diffuser (SD) degradation wavelength dependency to determine SD degradation in near-infrared and shortwave infrared wavelengths; 3) computing detector gains using SD screen-closed data to better match ocean radiance levels in all bands; 4) performing a simple atmospheric correction to reduce bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) effects in desert trends; 5) estimating and using modulated relative spectral response (RSR) impact on ocean data to adjust the calibration coefficients; 6) using smoothing to characterize the temporal change in calibration; and characterizing response versus scan angle (RVS) changes using 2nd-order polynomials to improve spatial/temporal calibration stability. Relative to the previous R2014 ocean color products, the R2018 calibration removed the suspect late-mission global trends in blue-band water-leaving reflectance and some anomalously large short-term variability (spikes) in the temporal trend of chlorophyll concentration. This paper will describe the OBPG calibration with a focus on the differences between the MCST and OBPG approaches.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 1105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bipin Raut ◽  
Morakot Kaewmanee ◽  
Amit Angal ◽  
Xiaoxiong Xiong ◽  
Dennis Helder

This work extends an empirical absolute calibration model initially developed for the Libya 4 Pseudo-Invariant Calibration Site (PICS) to five additional Saharan Desert PICS (Egypt 1, Libya 1, Niger 1, Niger 2, and Sudan 1), and demonstrates the efficacy of the resulting models at predicting sensor top-of-atmosphere (TOA) reflectance. It attempts to generate absolute calibration models for these PICS that have an accuracy and precision comparable to or better than the current Libya 4 model, with the intent of providing additional opportunities for sensor calibration. In addition, this work attempts to validate the general applicability of the model to other sites. The method uses Terra Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) as the reference radiometer and Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) Hyperion image data to provide a representative hyperspectral reflectance profile of the PICS. Data from a region of interest (ROI) in an “optimal region” of 3% temporal, spatial, and spectral stability within the PICS are used for developing the model. The developed models were used to simulate observations of the Landsat 7 (L7) Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+), Landsat 8 (L8) Operational Land Imager (OLI), Sentinel 2A (S2A) MultiSpectral Instrument (MSI) and Sentinel 2B (S2B) MultiSpectral Instrument (MSI) from their respective launch date through 2018. The models developed for the Egypt 1, Libya 1 and Sudan 1 PICS have an estimated accuracy of approximately 3% and precision of approximately 2% for the sensors used in the study, comparable to the current Libya 4 model. The models developed for the Niger 1 and Niger 2 sites are significantly less accurate with similar precision.


2015 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Cibele Teixeira Pinto ◽  
Flávio Jorge Ponzoni ◽  
Ruy Morgado Castro

ABSTRACT. The vicarious absolute calibration of electro-optical sensors dedicated to the Earth observation includes the definition of a reference surface from which radiometric measurements taken from the ground are compared to the effective radiance measured by the sensor in orbit. In order to facilitate the surface radiometric characterization process and consequently the sensor radiometric calibration, it is desirable that the surface presents, besides additional characteristics, temporal reflectance stability. This study aimed to evaluate the temporal stability of two potential reference surfaces for radiometric calibration of orbital electro-optical sensors located at: Tuz Gölü Salar in Turkey and Atacama Desert in Chile. Therefore, a temporal analysis of the radiometric properties of these two surfaces using cloud free images of TM/Landsat 5 sensor, acquired from 2003 to 2011, was performed. It was concluded, based on statistical criteria, that both reference surfaces do not presented temporal stability. Nevertheless, both surfaces may still be used for sensor calibration purposes if they were submitted to further spectral characterization with higher frequency and/or if the surfaces were considered stable “enough” within a certain limit of variation in reflectance. Taking that into account, according to the results of this work, it can be stated that Tuz G¨ol¨u surface reflectance has temporal stability within a range of 3-14% and the Atacama Desert better than 6%.Keywords: Earth observation sensors, radiometric calibration, reflectance, TM/Landsat 5.RESUMO. A primeira etapa para a realização da calibração absoluta de sensores de observação da Terra é a definição de uma superfície de referência. Um dos métodos mais comuns de calibração após o lançamento do sensor utiliza medições radiométricas de áreas localizadas na superfície terrestre. Para facilitar o processode caracterização da superfície e consequentemente o processo de calibração radiométrica, é desejável que a superfície apresente, entre outras características, estabilidade temporal. Assim, este trabalho teve como objetivo avaliar a estabilidade temporal de duas superfícies de referência potenciais para a calibração radiométrica de sistemas sensores eletro-ópticos: o salar de Tuz Gölü na Turquia e o deserto de Atacama no Chile. Para tanto, foi realizada uma análise temporal do comportamento espectral das duas superfícies por meio de imagens do sensor TMabordo do Landsat 5 livres de nuvens adquiridas nos anos de 2003 a 2011.De acordo com os resultados obtidos foi possível concluir, segundo os critérios estatísticos, que as duas superfícies de referência não apresentam estabilidade temporal. Apesar disso, as duas superfícies ainda podem ser utilizadas para calibração de sensores. Nesse caso, deve-se caracterizar espectralmente as duas áreas com maior frequência e/ou considerar a superfície como sendo “suficientemente” estável se a variação na reflectância ao longo do tempo for menor do que um determinado valor. Se esta consideração for feita pode-se afirmar, segundo o resultado desse trabalho, que Tuz Gölü tem estabilidade temporal entre 3 a 14% e o deserto de Atacama melhor do que 6%.Palavras-chave: sensores de observação da Terra, calibração radiométrica, reflectância, TM/Landsat 5.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (16) ◽  
pp. 2517
Author(s):  
Xiuqing Hu ◽  
Ling Wang ◽  
Junwei Wang ◽  
Lingli He ◽  
Lin Chen ◽  
...  

Pseudo-invariant calibration sites (PICS) have been used for the radiometric calibration and stability monitoring of satellite optical sensors. Several stable PICS, such as those in the Sahara Desert in North Africa, were selected for the vicarious calibration of earth remote sensing satellites. However, the selection procedure of PICSs in the whole of Northwest China has not been fully explored before. This paper presents a novel technique for selecting PICS in Northwest China by combined using the coefficient of variation (CV) and the iteratively reweighted multivariate alteration detection (IR-MAD) technique. IR-MAD, which calculates the differences between two multispectral N-band images from the same scene acquired at different times, is used to identify no-change pixels (NCPs) of the scene through one image pair. The NCPs from IR-MAD using the long-term data of FY-3 visible infrared radiometer (VIRR) and aqua Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) were aggregated into the contiguously stable sites. The traditional spatial uniformity and temporal stability from MODIS surface products were used to select the potential PICS. By combining the results of both methods, over thirty PICSs with a wider brightness range of the scene types were selected. To confirm and characterize these PICSs over Northwest China, Landsat operational land imager (OLI) high-spatial-resolution images were used to check the spatial uniformity of the selected site to determine the specific location and the size of these sites. Additionally, the surface spectral reflectance and bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) were obtained from the field campaign at Chaidamu Basin, 2018. To demonstrate the practical utilization and usability of these PICSs, they were employed in the multi-site top of atmosphere (TOA) reflectance simulation to validate the operational calibration performance of Aqua/MODIS and FY-3D/MERSI-II (Medium Resolution Spectral Imager II). The simulation results showed good consistency compared with the observations from both MODIS and MERSI-II, with a relative bias and root mean square error (RMSE) of <5% and <0.05%, respectively. These sites provide prospects for multi-site vicarious calibrations of solar reflective bands, which may help to evaluate or characterize instrumental nonlinear responses using a wider signal dynamic from the sites in different seasons.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 920
Author(s):  
Zhongting Wang ◽  
Ruru Deng ◽  
Pengfei Ma ◽  
Yuhuan Zhang ◽  
Yeheng Liang ◽  
...  

Aerosol distribution with fine spatial resolution is crucial for atmospheric environmental management. This paper proposes an improved algorithm of aerosol retrieval from 250-m Medium Resolution Spectral Image (MERSI) data of Chinese FY-3 satellites. A mixing model of soil and vegetation was used to calculate the parameters of the algorithm from moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) reflectance products in 500-m resolution. The mixing model was used to determine surface reflectance in blue band, and the 250-m aerosol optical depth (AOD) was retrieved through removing surface contributions from MERSI data over Guangzhou. The algorithm was used to monitor two pollution episodes in Guangzhou in 2015, and the results displayed an AOD spatial distribution with 250-m resolution. Compared with the yearly average of MODIS aerosol products in 2015, the 250-m resolution AOD derived from the MERSI data exhibited great potential for identifying air pollution sources. Daily AODs derived from MERSI data were compared with ground results from CE318 measurements. The results revealed a correlation coefficient between the AODs from MERSI and those from the ground measurements of approximately 0.85, and approximately 68% results were within expected error range of ±(0.05 + 15%τ).


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 227
Author(s):  
Arthur Elmes ◽  
Charlotte Levy ◽  
Angela Erb ◽  
Dorothy K. Hall ◽  
Ted A. Scambos ◽  
...  

In mid-June 2019, the Greenland ice sheet (GrIS) experienced an extreme early-season melt event. This, coupled with an earlier-than-average melt onset and low prior winter snowfall over western Greenland, led to a rapid decrease in surface albedo and greater solar energy absorption over the melt season. The 2019 melt season resulted in significantly more melt than other recent years, even compared to exceptional melt years previously identified in the moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) record. The increased solar radiation absorbance in 2019 warmed the surface and increased the rate of meltwater production. We use two decades of satellite-derived albedo from the MODIS MCD43 record to show a significant and extended decrease in albedo in Greenland during 2019. This decrease, early in the melt season and continuing during peak summer insolation, caused increased radiative forcing of the ice sheet of 2.33 Wm−2 for 2019. Radiative forcing is strongly influenced by the dramatic seasonal differences in surface albedo experienced by any location experiencing persistent and seasonal snow-cover. We also illustrate the utility of the newly developed Landsat-8 albedo product for better capturing the detailed spatial heterogeneity of the landscape, leading to a more refined representation of the surface energy budget. While the MCD43 data accurately capture the albedo for a given 500 m pixel, the higher spatial resolution 30 m Landsat-8 albedos more fully represent the detailed landscape variations.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 1379 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Plank ◽  
Michael Nolde ◽  
Rudolf Richter ◽  
Christian Fischer ◽  
Sandro Martinis ◽  
...  

Villarrica Volcano is one of the most active volcanoes in the South Andes Volcanic Zone. This article presents the results of a monitoring of the time before and after the 3 March 2015 eruption by analyzing nine satellite images acquired by the Technology Experiment Carrier-1 (TET-1), a small experimental German Aerospace Center (DLR) satellite. An atmospheric correction of the TET-1 data is presented, based on the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) Global Emissivity Database (GDEM) and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) water vapor data with the shortest temporal baseline to the TET-1 acquisitions. Next, the temperature, area coverage, and radiant power of the detected thermal hotspots were derived at subpixel level and compared with observations derived from MODIS and Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) data. Thermal anomalies were detected nine days before the eruption. After the decrease of the radiant power following the 3 March 2015 eruption, a stronger increase of the radiant power was observed on 25 April 2015. In addition, we show that the eruption-related ash coverage of the glacier at Villarrica Volcano could clearly be detected in TET-1 imagery. Landsat-8 imagery was analyzed for comparison. The information extracted from the TET-1 thermal data is thought be used in future to support and complement ground-based observations of active volcanoes.


Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 1315
Author(s):  
Xiaoying Ouyang ◽  
Dongmei Chen ◽  
Shugui Zhou ◽  
Rui Zhang ◽  
Jinxin Yang ◽  
...  

Satellite-derived lake surface water temperature (LSWT) measurements can be used for monitoring purposes. However, analyses based on the LSWT of Lake Ontario and the surrounding land surface temperature (LST) are scarce in the current literature. First, we provide an evaluation of the commonly used Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)-derived LSWT/LST (MOD11A1 and MYD11A1) using in situ measurements near the area of where Lake Ontario, the St. Lawrence River and the Rideau Canal meet. The MODIS datasets agreed well with ground sites measurements from 2015–2017, with an R2 consistently over 0.90. Among the different ground measurement sites, the best results were achieved for Hill Island, with a correlation of 0.99 and centered root mean square difference (RMSD) of 0.73 K for Aqua/MYD nighttime. The validated MODIS datasets were used to analyze the temperature trend over the study area from 2001 to 2018, through a linear regression method with a Mann–Kendall test. A slight warming trend was found, with 95% confidence over the ground sites from 2003 to 2012 for the MYD11A1-Night datasets. The warming trend for the whole region, including both the lake and the land, was about 0.17 K year−1 for the MYD11A1 datasets during 2003–2012, whereas it was about 0.06 K year−1 during 2003–2018. There was also a spatial pattern of warming, but the trend for the lake region was not obviously different from that of the land region. For the monthly trends, the warming trends for September and October from 2013 to 2018 are much more apparent than those of other months.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bharat Maharjan ◽  
Karin Pachel ◽  
Enn Loigu

Temporal trends provide a good interpretation of change in stormwater quality over time. This study aimed to analyse trends and influences due to stormflow and baseflow. Grab samples of 18-19 years from 1995 to 2014 recorded at outlets of 7 Tallinn watersheds were analysed for monotonic trend through seasonal Mann Kendall test for long-term, short-term, baseflow and stormflow. Statistically significant downward trends (P-value (p) &lt; 0.05) were found for 6 – hydrocarbon (HC), 1 – suspended solids (SS), 3 – biological oxygen demand (BOD), 4 – total nitrogen (TN) and 2 – total phosphorus (TP) out of 7 sampling outlets over the last 10 years. Less significant decreasing trends (p > 0.05 and &lt; 0.2) for 3 – SS, 1 – BOD, 1 – TN and 1 – TP were identified. Statistically significant long-term upward trends of pH were re-vealed in 5 basins, which reduced to 2 with 5 less significant upward trends over the 10 year period, indicating improve-ments in pH reduction. Härjapea has the highest pH without trend but it includes an upward trend of TN at p = 0.051. The highly possible causes for downward trends are street sweeping, sewer network improvement, decline in sub-urban agri-cultural areas, etc. The upward trend results of pH are related to increased alkalinisation due to acidic rain, weathering of carbonate rocks, sewage discharge and alkaline road dust. In most of the basins, stormflow has more influence on trends than baseflow.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 298 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisiane Alba ◽  
Rudiney S. Pereira ◽  
Juliana Marchesan ◽  
Emanuel A. Silva ◽  
Fábio de J. Batista ◽  
...  

The albedo is an important variable that controls the balance of radiation and energy of the atmosphere, so changes in land cover cause alterations in albedo values, influencing changes in climate behavior at different scales. The goal in this work was to investigate the possible occurrence and causes associated with surface albedo trends within the Atlantic Forest biome (S&atilde;o Francisco de Paula, state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil), during the last thirty years (1987-2017), evaluating the impacts of the forest cover structure on albedo trends. The study included images of the TM/Landsat 5 and OLI/Landsat 8 sensors over the period 1987 to 2017. The surface albedo was obtained from the SEBAL algorithm, which includes in its variables the reflectance values of each band, reflected solar radiation and atmospheric transmissivity. The trend analysis was performed by the Mann-Kendall test verifying the existence of significant trends over 30 years. Subsequently, the influence of vegetation greenness on the trend presented by the albedo surface was evaluated. Approximately 92% of the pixels with significant tendency are associated with the decreasing tendency of the albedo. The downward trend was observed with the change from the field to the forest cover, while increasing trends were influenced by the change in forest cover, such as the suppression of individuals from the upper forest canopy. The forest populations in areas of the Mata Atl&acirc;ntica biome had a large participation in the energy balance, which exposed a reduction of approximately 60% of the surface albedo with its implantation, showing its importance for reducing the emission of energy to the atmosphere. The spatial pattern of the trend distribution of the surface albedo is related to the concentration and vigor of the arboreal vegetation.


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