Evaluation of the Radiometric Calibration of FY4A-AGRI Thermal Infrared Data Using Lake Qinghai

Abstract

The absolute radiometric accuracy of thermal infrared channels of the Advanced Geosynchronous Radiation Imager (AGRI) onboard the FengYun-4A (FY4A) satellite was assessed with field experiment data in a vicarious calibration on 18, 2019, and August 20, 2019, in Lake Qinghai. Continuous water temperature records were collected by an unmanned surface vehicle equipped with a radiometer during the experimental period. We proposed a spectral matching method based on atmospheric transfer code to create consistent equivalent spectral radiance, and the results predicted by atmospheric transfer simulation were convolved with instrument response functions to obtain predicted brightness temperature for comparison with satellite-derived temperature. Our results indicated that AGRI had an average temperature bias of 0.12 K with an RMSE of 0.17 and 0.61 K with an RMSE of 0.22 K in band 12 and band 13 on August 18, while these biases decreased to -0.01 K with an RMSE of 0.13 and -0.48 K with an RMSE of 0.17 K on August 20, respectively. This radiometric accuracy indicated that AGRI TIR bands are well functional compared with their preflight requirement of less than 1 K. The uncertainty analysis also suggested that atmospheric conditions would alter the calibration accuracy by influencing the transmittance and path thermal radiance. Meanwhile, cloud cover also requires more attention to select the appropriate concurrent satellite pixels to reduce the possible cloud edge effects. It is important and necessary for FY4A AGRI to conduct more intense automatic observations and obtain more data to improve the accuracy of radiometric calibration and monitor the operational status of satellite instruments.