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Assessment of the short-term radiometric stability between Terra MODIS and Landsat 7 ETM+ sensors

Taeyoung Choi·Xiaoxiong Xiong·Gyanesh Chander·A. Angal
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Abstract

Short-term radiometric stability was evaluated using continuous ETM+ scenes within a single orbit (contact period) and the corresponding MODIS scenes for the four matching solar reflective visible and near-infrared (VNIR) band pairs between the two sensors. The near-simultaneous earth observations were limited by the smaller swath size of ETM+ (183 km) compared to MODIS (2330 km). Two sets of continuous granules for Terra MODIS and Landsat 7 ETM+ were selected and mosaicked based on pixel geolocation information for noncloudy pixels over the African continent. The matching pixel pairs were resampled from a fine to a coarse pixel resolution, and the at-sensor spectral radiance values for a wide dynamic range of the sensors were compared and analyzed, covering various surface types. The following study focuses on radiometric stability analysis from the VNIR band-pairs of ETM+ and MODIS. The Libya-4 desert target was included in the path of this continuous orbit, which served as a verification point between the short-term and the long-term trending results from previous studies. MODTRAN at-sensor spectral radiance simulation is included for a representative desert surface type to evaluate the consistency of the results.

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Taeyoung Choi, Xiaoxiong Xiong, Gyanesh Chander, A. Angal. 2009. Assessment of the short-term radiometric stability between Terra MODIS and Landsat 7 ETM+ sensors. https://doi.org/10.1109/igarss.2009.5417501

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