An Improved Method to Derive Surface Albedo from Narrowband AVHRR Satellite Data: Narrowband to Broadband Conversion

Abstract

A method was investigated to estimate broadband surface shortwave albedo from the narrowband reflectances obtained by the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometers (AVHRRs) on board the polar orbiting satellites. Field experiments were conducted to measure simultaneously multispectral narrowband reflectances and broadband albedo over various vegetation and soil surfaces. These data were combined to examine the behavior of narrowband-to-broadband (NTB) conversion factors for different surfaces. Many previous studies have used constant NTB conversion factors for the AVHRR data. The results from this investigation indicate that the optimal NTB conversion factors for AVHRR channels 1 and 2 have a strong dependence on the amount of green vegetation within the field of view. Two conversion factors, f1 and f2, were established to quantify, respectively, 1) the relationship between the reflectance in the narrow red wave band and the total reflectance within the whole visible subregion (0.3–0.685 μm) and 2) the relationship between the reflectance in the narrow near-infrared wave band and the total reflectance within the whole near-infrared subregion (0.685–2.8 μm). Values of f1 and f2, calculated from field data, correlated well with the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), largely because of the unique characteristics of light absorption and scattering within the red and near-infrared wave bands by green leaves. The f1–NDVI and f2–NDVI relationships developed from this study were used to infer empirical coefficients needed to estimate surface albedo from AVHRR data. The surface albedo values calculated by the new method agreed with ground-based measurements within a root-mean-square error of 0.02, which is better than other methods that use constant empirical coefficients. Testing with albedo measurements made by unmanned aerospace vehicles during a field campaign also indicates that the new method provides an improved estimate of surface albedo.