Impact of the angular dependence of the SNPP VIIRS solar diffuser BRDF degradation factor on the radiometric calibration of the reflective solar bands

Abstract

The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) aboard the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite performs radiometric calibration of its reflective solar bands (RSBs) primarily by observing an onboard solar diffuser (SD). The SD optical scattering property is measured by a bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF). Once on orbit, the BRDF degrades over time and the degradation factor is determined by an onboard solar diffuser stability monitor (SDSM) which observes the Sun and the sunlit SD at almost the same time. We showed in a previous SPIE paper that the BRDF degradation factor is angle dependent. Consequently, due to that the SDSM and the VIIRS telescope SD views have very different angles, applying the BRDF degradation factor determined from the SDSM without any adjustments to the VIIRS RSB calibration can result in large systematic errors. In addition, the BRDF angular dependence impacts the determination of the SD screen transmittance viewed by both the SDSM detectors and the VIIRS telescope. We first use yaw maneuver data to determine the product of the SD attenuation screen transmittance and the BRDF at the initial time (when the BRDF just started to degrade) viewed by the VIIRS telescope, removing the impact of the SD BRDF degradation factor angular dependence over satellite orbits. By attributing the large bumps observed in the initially computed VIIRS detector gains for the M1-M4 bands to the angular dependence of the BRDF degradation factor and matching the computed VIIRS detector gains from the SD and the lunar observations, we find the relation between the BRDF degradation factors in the VIIRS telescope and SDSM SD view directions.