Abstract
This paper compares the calibration consistency of the spectrally-matched thermal emissive bands (TEB) between the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (S-NPP) Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) and the Aqua Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), using observations from their simultaneous nadir overpasses (SNO). Nearly-simultaneous hyperspectral measurements from the Aqua Atmospheric Infrared Sounder(AIRS) and the S-NPP Cross-track Infrared Sounder (CrIS) are used to account for existing spectral response differences between MODIS and VIIRS TEB. The comparison uses VIIRS Sensor Data Records (SDR) in MODIS five-minute granule format provided by the NASA Land Product and Evaluation and Test Element (PEATE) and Aqua MODIS Collection 6 Level 1 B (L1B) products. Each AIRS footprint of 13.5 km (or CrIS field of view of 14 km) is co-located with multiple MODIS (or VIIRS) pixels. The corresponding AIRS- and CrIS-simulated MODIS and VIIRS radiances are derived by convolutions based on sensor-dependent relative spectral response (RSR) functions. The VIIRS and MODIS TEB calibration consistency is evaluated and the two sensors agreed within 0.2 K in brightness temperature. Additional factors affecting the comparison such as geolocation and atmospheric water vapor content are also discussed in this paper.
Highlights
Information from space-borne instruments has provided long term observational science data by acquiring imagery of the Earth
The radiance difference between Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) thermal emissive bands (TEB) due to their relative spectral response (RSR) differences was derived by the comparison to the integrated Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) and Cross-track Infrared Sounder (CrIS) hyperspectral data
RSR function of VIIRS and MODIS was first applied to each infrared sounder (AIRS and5 ofCrIS)
Summary
S-NPP CrIS were collected in the CrIS footprints for VIIRS-MODIS inter-comparison, in which CrIS measurements were used as a transfer reference to derive the bias correction caused by different relative spectral response (RSR) functions between VIIRS and MODIS. Their results showed that the RSR-corrected brightness temperature (BT) differences between VIIRS and MODIS are exceptionally small and are generally within0.2 K over the entire scene temperature range using ten SNO datasets between August 2013 and July 2014. Comparing VIIRS and MODIS TEB using CrIS in two respects: (1) AIRS hyperspectral measurements are included This allows for a RSR correction to achieve a better spectrally-matched VIIRS and MODIS. Inter-comparison methodology and data processing are introduced in Section 4; Section 5 shows inter-comparison results and provides a discussion of the results; and Section 6 is a summary of our analysis
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