Remote Sensing Meteorological Satellites Applied to Earth Surface Observation

Meteorological Satellites (Metsats) ► Coarse spatial resolution, high temporal resolution ► NOAA, GOES, and DMSP ► NIMBUS ► EOS, OrbView-2, SPOT-4

1. AVHRR ► Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer ► 1979 – ► Designed as weather sensors on NOAA satellites ► Become increasingly popular for land oriented applications

AVHRR Orbits ► Sun-synchronous ► Inclination 98.9 o ► 833km altitude ► Swath 2400km cross track

East Coast on September 27, 1997: June 26, 2000 covers European Russian eastward into Siberia.

Spectral Resolution ► - band1: microm (red) - band2: microm (near infrared) - band3: microm (mid infrared- thermal) - band4: microm (thermal)* - band5: microm (thermal)*

Resolutions ► 10 bits, 1024 levels of brightness ► Spatial resolution - 1.1km Local Area Coverage (LAC) - 4 km global Area Coverage (GAC) ► Temporal resolution: daily ► Temporal resolution: daily

Data ► Low cost ► Public domain distributed by NOAA ► Public domain distributed by NOAA

Vegetation Indices ► Vegetation Index (VI): NIR-Red ► Normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) NDVI = (NIR-Red)/(NIR+Red)

NDVI AVHRR

NDVI MODIS

NDVI SPOT

Spectral Reflectance Curve

Vegetation Index

2. GOES 2. GOES ► Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites ► As part of global network of metsats 70 o longitude apart around the world, domestic data available since 1975 ► Geosynchronous, altitude 36,000km ► GOES East 75 o W, GOES-West 135 o W

GOES East 75 o W

GOES-West 135 o W

GOES.. ► A full disk view ► A visible (day time) microm 4 thermal band (day and night) microm ► 1km spatial resolution for the visible band, and 4,8,4,4km for the four thermal bands, respectively ► Data are distributed real time

GOES View of South America

3. DMSP ► Defense Meteorological Satellite Program ► Data were available to civilian users since

3. DMSP ► Sun-synchronous ► microm (visible & NIR), 8-13microm (thermal) ► A nighttime visible band, the population map, volcanoes, oil and gas fields, and forest fires ► 3km spatial resolution

NIGHTFALL IN USA

OUR PLANET IN THE MIDDLE OF THE UNIVERSE AT NIGHT

4. Ocean Monitoring Satellites ► Nimbus-7, 1978 – 1986 ► Carry Coastal Zone Color Scanner (CZCS) ► Swath 1566km The Gulf of Mexico Visible Thermal

4. NIMBUS ► 825m spatial resolution ► 6 bands - visible bands: phytoplankton concentration, suspended silt - NIR: surface vegetation, land/water boundary - thermal: sea surface temperature

Color-coded temperature maps

5. Earth Observing System (EOS) ► Earth Science Enterprise (ESE) formally called Mission to Planet Earth (MTPE) NASA program ► Terra (EOS-AM), 1999 Aqua (EOS-PM), 2002

Terra Terra

Five Sensors on Board Terra ► MODIS - Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectro-Radiometer - Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectro-Radiometer ► ASTER - Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer ► CERES - Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System ► MISR - Multi-Angle Imaging Spectro-Radiometer ► MOPITT - Measurements of Pollution in the Troposphere

MODIS ► MODIS, a highly improved successor to AVHRR ► Launched in 1999 ► Launched in 1999 ► Greater spatial resolution, 250, 500, and 1000m ► 36 bands between  m ► 4096 radiometric resolution ► 2-day interval

MODIS Bands ► Bands  m, 250m, Land/clouds boundaries ► Bands  m, 500m, Land/cloud properties ► Bands  m, 1000m, Ocean color /phytoplankton/biogeochemistry ► Bands  m, 1000m, Atmospheric water vapor

MODIS Bands … ► Bands  m, 1000m, Surface/cloud temperature ► Bands  m, 1000m, Atmospheric temperature ► Band  m, 1000m, Cirrus clouds ► Bands  m, 1000m, Water vapor

MODIS Bands … ► Band  m, 1000m, Ozone ► Bands  m, 1000m, Surface/cloud temperature ► Bands  m, 1000m, Cloud top altitude

A MODIS oblique view One of the important EOS joint study programs is the Indian Ocean Experiment.

MODIS Atmospheric appearance of aerosols, much being the result of pollution Water vapor, even when heavy clouds are absent or dispersed

MODIS The fluorescent properties of the ocean, which relate to plankton content. The chlorophyll content

ASTER ► Collaboration between US and Japan ► Consists of three instrument systems VNIR: visible and NIR ► Consists of three instrument systems VNIR: visible and NIR SWIR: short wave infrared TIR: thermal infrared SWIR: short wave infrared TIR: thermal infrared ► 60km swath

ASTER ► VNIR: visible and NIR G, R, NIR, NIR; 15m, 8bits G, R, NIR, NIR; 15m, 8bits ► SWIR: short wave infrared 5 bands in MIR; 30m, 8bits ► TIR: thermal infrared 5 bands in thermal; 90m, 12bits

ASTER Volcanoes in the Andes mountain chain of South America

Examples of ASTER RGB false-color composites draped over ASTER DTMs. (A) Tasman Glacier, New Zealand. The scene covers approximately 25 x 25 km (B) Llewellyn Glacier, British Columbia. Scale is ∼ 13 km across the middle of the image and 25 km from bottom (foreground) to top (background). 15m resolution. Multispectral imaging contributions to global land ice measurements from space Kargel, J. S. and 16 others (2005) Multispectral Imaging contributions to Global Land Ice Measurements from Space, Special Issue on Terra/ ASTER Science. Remote Sensing of Environment 99,

Mapping alluvial gully erosion in Australia tropical rivers Knight, J., Spencer, J. Brooks, A. & Phinn, S. “Large-Area, High-Resolution Remote Sensing Based Mapping of Alluvial Gully Erosion in Australia’s Tropical Rivers”. Proceedings of the 5th Australian Stream Management Conference Proceedings, Albury, NSW May 2007

Aqua

Aqua ► Complement Terra observations by providing data later in the day ► Launched in 2002 ► Designed to obtain information of weather and ocean ► 6 instruments on board including MODIS

Six Sensors on Board Aqua ► MODIS ► CERES ► AMSR/E - Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer-EOS ► AMSU - Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit ► AIRS - Atmospheric Infrared Sounder ► HSB - Humidity Sounder for Brazil

Aqua Improved sea surface and brightness temperatures on June ml

Aqua Sea surface temperature in hurricane alley. This false color composite image is made using data taken by AMSR-E on board EOS, May 2002.

6. SeaWiFS ► Sea-viewing Wide-Field-of-View Sensor ► NASA contracted with Orbital Science Corp. launched on OrbView-2 ► Designed to study ocean biogeochemistry

6. SeaWiFS ► 8 bands between  m ► 1.1km spatial resolution ► 2800km swath Chlorphyll concentrations (in red, yellow, and orange colors) on a near global scale during September,

7. SPOT 4 ► Launched on Mar 23, 1998 ► High Resolution Visible and Infrared (HRVIR) ► An additional mid-infrared  m for vegetation, mineral, and soil moisture monitoring ► Replace the pan band with a red band that produces both 10m black/white and 20m XS data ► A wide IFOV Vegetation Monitoring Instrument with 1km resolution, 2250km swath, B, R, NIR, MIR bands

Readings ► Chapter 6

3-D atmospheric maps developed from multisensor observations such as the above three data sets. Here is the western Mediterranean (France on left and North Africa on right) with the bottom shown as a landscape image, and atmospheric layers at 8 and 12 km shown in colors with red the warmest and purples coolest.