Abstract
Abstract. This work develops a method to compare the radiometric calibration between a radiometer and imagers hosted on aircraft and satellites. The radiometer is the airborne Research Scanning Polarimeter (RSP), which takes multi-angle, photo-polarimetric measurements in several spectral channels. The RSP measurements used in this work were coincident with measurements made by the Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS), which was on the same aircraft. These airborne measurements were also coincident with an overpass of the Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI). First we compare the RSP and OLI radiance measurements to AVIRIS since the spectral response of the multispectral instruments can be used to synthesize a spectrally equivalent signal from the imaging spectrometer data. We then explore a method that uses AVIRIS as a transfer between RSP and OLI to show that radiometric traceability of a satellite-based imager can be used to calibrate a radiometer despite differences in spectral channel sensitivities. This calibration transfer shows agreement within the uncertainty of both the various instruments for most spectral channels.
Highlights
Remote-sensing instruments used for Earth observation are typically characterized over their spectral, spatial, radiometric, polarimetric, and operating sensitivities before; during; and, in the case of airborne sensors, after science measurements have been taken
Research Scanning Polarimeter (RSP), Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS), and Operational Land Imager (OLI) data used in this work were downloaded from each sensor’s respective server on 1 September 2014, and red-green-blue snapshots from the imagers are shown in Figs. 4 and 5, where the right image in Fig. 5 is a magnification in the OLI image of the area measured by RSP and AVIRIS
In this paper we compared the radiometric calibration of an airborne radiometer (RSP) to that of an airborne imaging spectrometer (AVIRIS) and a satellite imager (Landsat 8 OLI)
Summary
Remote-sensing instruments used for Earth observation are typically characterized over their spectral, spatial, radiometric, polarimetric, and operating sensitivities before; during; and, in the case of airborne sensors, after science measurements have been taken. One way to reduce the cost of satellite sensors is to forgo the use of onboard calibration devices to reduce the complexity, mass, and platform requirements. Another way to reduce cost is to be hosted by another payload, but typical requirements for such a partnership prevent orbital maneuvers required by some onboard calibration methods, namely lunar measurements. Cost-saving strategies such as these put science results at risk of being contaminated by calibration issues such as transfer-to-orbit changes and sensor degradation while in operation. Vicarious calibration techniques can be used to transfer radiometric traceability from one sensor to another and track degradation over time
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