First Provisional Land Surface Reflectance Product from Geostationary Satellite Himawari-8 AHI

Shuang Li,Ramakrishna Nemani,Lexiang Qian,Kazuhito Ichii,Alexei Lyapustin,Thomas Vandal,Hirofumi Hashimoto,Yujie Wang,Jun Xiong,Weile Wang,Jing Yao

doi:10.3390/rs11242990

Abstract

A provisional surface reflectance (SR) product from the Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI) on-board the new generation geostationary satellite (Himawari-8) covering the period between July 2015 and December 2018 is made available to the scientific community. The Multi-Angle Implementation of Atmospheric Correction (MAIAC) algorithm is used in conjunction with time series Himawari-8 AHI observations to generate 1-km gridded and tiled land SR every 10 minutes during day time. This Himawari-8 AHI SR product includes retrieved atmospheric properties (e.g., aerosol optical depth at 0.47µm and 0.51µm), spectral surface reflectance (AHI bands 1–6), parameters of the RTLS BRDF model, and quality assurance flags. Product evaluation shows that Himawari-8 AHI data on average yielded 35% more cloud-free, valid pixels in a single day when compared to available data from the low earth orbit (LEO) satellites Terra/Aqua with MODIS sensor. Comparisons of Himawari-8 AHI SR against corresponding MODIS SR products (MCD19A1) over a variety of land cover types with the similar viewing geometry show high consistency between them, with correlation coefficients (r) being 0.94 and 0.99 for red and NIR bands, respectively. The high-frequency geostationary data are expected to facilitate studies of ecosystems on daily to diurnal time scales, complementing observations from networks such as the FLUXNET.

Highlights

The new generation geostationary (GEO) remote sensors (GOES ABI, Himawari Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI), FY4 AGRI, and MTG-I FCI) provide unprecedented high-frequency observations at 5–15-minute intervals
An adapted Multi-Angle Implementation of Atmospheric Correction (MAIAC) algorithm was used for the atmospheric correction of Himawari-8 AHI data
The adapted MAIAC algorithm used in GeoNEX was based on the well-established heritage from MODIS mission, which made HM08_AHI12 compatible to MODIS data (MCD19A1)

Summary

Introduction

The new generation geostationary (GEO) remote sensors (GOES ABI, Himawari AHI, FY4 AGRI, and MTG-I FCI) provide unprecedented high-frequency observations at 5–15-minute intervals. Of the 16 spectral bands, it carries six solar reflective bands (B01, B02, B03, B04, B05, and B06) that could be used for the observation of the land surface with spatial resolution 500 m for the red (B3), 1 km for visible-near infrared (B1, B2, and B4), and 2 km for short-wave infrared bands (B5 and B6). These six solar reflective bands closely mimic the spectral characteristics of the NASA EOS flagship MODIS Terra/Aqua. Abovementioned spectral and radiometric characteristics of AHI make producing high-frequency MODIS-like land products from Himawari-8 AHI possible

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