Earth-observing satellite intercomparison using the Radiometric Calibration Test Site at Railroad Valley

Jeffrey Czapla-Myers,Joel Mccorkel,Nikolaus Anderson,Stuart Biggar

doi:10.1117/1.jrs.12.012004

Abstract

This paper describes the current ground-based calibration results of Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+), Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI), Terra and Aqua Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), Suomi National Polar orbiting Partnership Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), and Sentinel-2A Multispectral Instrument (MSI), using an automated suite of instruments located at Railroad Valley, Nevada, USA. The period of this study is 2012 to 2016 for MODIS, VIIRS, and ETM+, 2013 to 2016 for OLI, and 2015 to 2016 for MSI. The current results show that all sensors agree with the Radiometric Calibration Test Site (RadCaTS) to within ±5% in the solar-reflective regime, except for one band on VIIRS that is within ±6%. In the case of ETM+ and OLI, the agreement is within ±3%, and, in the case of MODIS, the agreement is within ±3.5%. MSI agrees with RadCaTS to within ±4.5% in all applicable bands.

Highlights

Airborne and spaceborne sensors provide critical data to the scientific community for Earthobservation studies
Recent efforts by the Remote Sensing Group (RSG) at the University of Arizona resulted in the development of the Radiometric Calibration Test Site (RadCaTS) at Railroad Valley, which is currently being used to calibrate such sensors as Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+), Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI), the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) onboard Terra and Aqua, Suomi National Polar orbiting Partnership (SNPP) Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), and the European Space Agency (ESA) Sentinel-2 Multispectral Instrument (MSI), among others.[2,3,4,5]
The comparison between the TOA spectral radiance reported by ETM+ and OLI using RadCaTS is shown in Fig. 4 for period 2012 to 2016 in the case of ETM+ and 2013 to 2016 in the case of OLI

Summary

Introduction

Airborne and spaceborne sensors provide critical data to the scientific community for Earthobservation studies. The recent development of CubeSat and nanosat constellations has created new challenges for the vicarious calibration community. Recent efforts by the Remote Sensing Group (RSG) at the University of Arizona resulted in the development of the Radiometric Calibration Test Site (RadCaTS) at Railroad Valley, which is currently being used to calibrate such sensors as Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+), Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI), the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) onboard Terra and Aqua, Suomi National Polar orbiting Partnership (SNPP) Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), and the European Space Agency (ESA) Sentinel-2 Multispectral Instrument (MSI), among others.[2,3,4,5] RadCaTS is one of four current sites that

Methods

Results

Conclusion