Ground truth measurements plan for the Multispectral Thermal Imager (MTI) satellite

Abstract

Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), and the Savannah River Technology Center (SRTC) have developed a diverse group of algorithms for processing and analyzing the data that will be collected by the Multispectral Thermal Imager (MTI) after launch late in 1999. Each of these algorithms must be verified by comparison to independent surface and atmospheric measurements. SRTC has selected 13 sites in the continental U.S. for ground truth data collections. These sites include a high altitude cold water target (Crater Lake), cooling lakes and towers in the warm, humid southeastern US, Department of Energy (DOE) climate research sites, the NASA Stennis satellite Validation and Verification (V and V) target array, waste sites at the Savannah River Site, mining sites in the Four Corners area and dry lake beds in the southwestern US. SRTC has established mutually beneficial relationships with the organizations that manage these sites to make use of their operating and research data and to install additional instrumentation needed for MTI algorithm V and V.