Engineering topics
Publications and source records attributed to Conel, J. E..
This paper describes the results between MISR and ground field measurements of surface bidirectional reflectance, in attempt to validate MISR surface products.
The mission goal is to provide improved assessment of these factors for the study of terrestrial radiation balance and impact on climate change.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
An Airborne Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (AirMISR) instrument has beed developed to assist in validation of the Earth Observing System (EOS) MISR experiment.
Radiative closure experiments involving a comparison between surface-measured spectral irradiance and the surface irradiance calculated according to a radiative transfer code at a desert site in Nevada under clear skies, yield the result that agreement between the two requires presence of an absorbing aerosol component with an imaginary refractive index equal to 0.03 and a 50:50 mix by optical depth of small and large particles with log-normal size distributions.
A plan for the ground-based validation of MISR aerosol retrieval is outlined. Activities occur in two phases: (1) pre-launch, work is focused on technique development and MISR algorithm validation using conventional ground-base methods and a MISR simulator (AirMISR) operating from the ER-2 aircraft to simulate MISR on-orbit observations. (2) Post-launch, the validation program relies on ground campaigns, underflights wit the MISR simulator and the use of local measurements fo aerosol loading and properties and irradiance measurements derived from the AERONET and ISIS networks.
To validate AVIRIS in flight, and in-flight calibration experiment was performed for an over-flight on May 9, 1995, at Ivanpah Playa, California, USA. In-situ measurements were used to constrain a radiative transfer code and predict the total upwelling spectral radiance incident at AVIRIS.
The Multi-Angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) instrument is being developed at JPL for the EOS AM1 spacecraft, scheduled for launch in June 1998. The development status and strategy for observing atmospheric aerosols are described.
The Multi-Angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) is being developed at JPL for the AM1 spacecraft in the Earth Observing System (EOS) series. This paper reports on the progress of instrument fabrication and testing, and it discusses the strategy to use the instrument for studying tropospheric aerosols.
Remote sensing of troposheric water vapor profiles from current geostationary weather satellites is made using a few broadband infrared (IR) channels in the 6-13 micron region. Uncertainties greater than 20% exist in derived water vapor values just above the surface from the IR emission measurements. In this paper, we propose three near-IR channels, one within the 0.94-micron water vapor band absorption region, and the other two in nearby atmospheric windows, for remote sensing of precipitable water vapor over land areas, excluding lakes and rivers, during daytime from future geostationary satellite platforms. The physical principles are as follows. The reflectance of most surface targets varies approximately linearly with wavelength near 1 micron. The solar radiation on the sun-surface-sensor ray path is attenuated by atmospheric water vapor. The ratio of the radiance from the absorption channel with the radiances from the two window channels removes the surface reflectance effects and yields approximately the mean atmospheric water vapor transmittance of the absorption channel. The integrated water vapor amount from ground to space can be obtained with a precision of better than 5% from the mean transmittance. Because surface reflectances vary slowly with time, temporal variation of precipitable water vapor can be determined reliably. High spatial resolution, precipitable water vapor images are derived from spectral data collected by the Airborne Visable-Infrared Imaging Spectrometer, which measures solar radiation reflected by the surface in the 0.4-2.5 micron region in 10-nm channels and has a ground instantaneous field of view of 20 m from its platform on an ER-2 aircraft at 20 km. The proposed near-IR reflectance technique would complement the IR emission techniques for remote sensing of water vapor profiles from geostationary satellite platforms, especially in the boundary layer where most of the water vapor is located.
An evaluation of atmospheric correction of AVIRIS data using radiative transfer codes LOWTRAN7 and MODTRAN is presented. The algorithm employed is based on a simple model of radiance L at each wavelength at the sensor that can be written approximately LAV=Lp+Tp, where subscript AV referes to AVIRIS, Lp is the path radiance and Tp is the diffuse + direct transmitted radiance of the atmosphere at AVIRIS.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
The Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer measures spatial images of the total upwelling spectral radiance from 400 to 2500 nm through 10 nm spectral channels. Quantitative research and application objectives for surface investigations require conversion of the measured radiance to surface reflectance or surface leaving radiance. To calculate apparent surface reflectance an estimation of atmospheric water vapor abundance, cirrus cloud effects, surface pressure elevation and aerosol optical depth is also required. Algorithms for the estimation of these parameters from the AVIRIS data themselves are described. Based upon these determined atmospheric parameters we show an example of the calculation of apparent surface reflectance from the AVIRIS-measured radiance using a radiative transfer code.
To achieve the research of objectives of the Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS), the sensor calibration must be valid while AVIRIS is acquiring data from the airborne platform.
Twosimple techniques to retrieve path precipitable water fromthe Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) high spectral resolution radiance data (Continuum Interpolated Band Ratio, CIBR, and Narrow/Wide Ratio, N/W), using the 940 nm water absorption band, are compared.
The inflight radiometric performance of AVIRIS is presented together with a comparison of methods of recovering surface spectral reflectance from the data. Performance is evaluated by comparing radiance predicted from AVIRIS with radiance generated from the LOWIRAN 6 atmospheric model and measured surface reflectance. Comparisons show apparent agreement to within a few percent between 1800 and 2450 nm. Between 600 and 1800 nm the response of AVIRIS is systematically low by as much as 70 percent, and between 400 and 600 nm it is higher than expected. These problems are traced to thermal distortions of the instrument, and to detachment during flight of optical fibers connecting foreoptics to two of four spectrometers in the instrument. Of three methods studied, an empirical one involving calibration curves constructed from field reflectance measurements returns accurate predictions of the surface reflectance independent of the actual radiometric significance of the flight data.
The spectral radiance of test areas under solar illumination is ascertained in view of Airborne Imaging Spectrometer (AIS) data from Mono Lake, CA, establishing an atmospheric correction method for major absorbers on the basis of the spectrometric data themselves. The apparent low contrast of all atmospheric absorption bands leads to a study of contamination from overlapping spectral orders in the AIS data; this contamination is found unambiguously above 1500 nm with a magnitude that is a factor of 1.5-2.0 greater than the expected uncontaminated signal alone.