Search results for "Planetary Science"

Towards a long-term dataset of ELBARA-II measurements assisting SMOS level-3 land product and algorithm validation at the Valencia Anchor Station

2015

[EN] The Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission was launched on 2nd November 2009 with the objective of providing global estimations of soil moisture and sea salinity. The main activity of the Valencia Anchor Station (VAS) is currently to assist in a long-term validation of SMOS land products. This study focus on a level 3 SMOS data validation with in situ measurements carried out in the period 2010-2012 over the VAS. ELBARA-II radiometer is placed in the VAS area, observing a vineyard field considered as representative of a major proportion of an area of 50×50 km, enough to cover a SMOS footprint. Brightness temperatures (TB) acquired by ELBARA-II have been compared to those obser…

Ash-plume dynamics and eruption source parameters by infrasound and thermal imagery: The 2010 Eyjafjallajökull eruption

2013

During operational ash-cloud forecasting, prediction of ash concentration and total erupted mass directly depends on the determination of mass eruption rate (MER), which is typically inferred from plume height. Uncertainties for plume heights are large, especially for bent-over plumes in which the ascent dynamics are strongly affected by the surrounding wind field. Here we show how uncertainties can be reduced if MER is derived directly from geophysical observations of source dynamics. The combination of infrasound measurements and thermal camera imagery allows for the infrasonic type of source to be constrained (a dipole in this case) and for the plume exit velocity to be calculated (54–14…

Landsat and Local Land Surface Temperatures in a Heterogeneous Terrain Compared to MODIS Values

2016

Land Surface Temperature (LST) as provided by remote sensing onboard satellites is a key parameter for a number of applications in Earth System studies, such as numerical modelling or regional estimation of surface energy and water fluxes. In the case of Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) onboard Terra or Aqua, pixels have resolutions near 1 km 2 , LST values being an average of the real subpixel variability of LST, which can be significant for heterogeneous terrain. Here, we use Landsat 7 LST decametre-scale fields to evaluate the temporal and spatial variability at the kilometre scale and compare the resulting average values to those provided by MODIS for the same obser…

On the Dependence of Cirrus Parametrizations on the Cloud Origin

2019

<p>Particle size distributions (PSDs) for cirrus clouds are important for both climate models as well as many remote sensing retrieval methods. Therefore, PSD parametrizations are required. This study presents parametrizations of Arctic cirrus PSDs. The dataset used for this purpose originates from balloon-borne measurements carried out during winter above Kiruna (Sweden), i.e. north of the Arctic circle. The observations are sorted into two types of cirrus cloud origin, either in-situ or liquid. The cloud origin describes the formation pathway of the ice particles. At temperatures below −38 °C, ice particles form in-situ from solution or ice nuclea…

Evaluation of the MODIS Albedo product over a heterogeneous agricultural area

2013

In this article, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer MODIS Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function BRDF/Albedo product MCD43 is evaluated over a heterogeneous agricultural area in the framework of the Earth Observation: Optical Data Calibration and Information Extraction EODIX project campaign, which was developed in Barrax Spain in June 2011. In this method, two models, the RossThick-LiSparse-Reciprocal RTLSR which corresponds to the MODIS BRDF algorithm and the RossThick-Maignan-LiSparse-Reciprocal RTLSR-HS, were tested over airborne data by processing high-resolution images acquired with the Airborne Hyperspectral Scanner AHS sensor. During the campaign, airborne im…

Evaluation of quasi-geoid model based on astrogeodetic measurements: case of Latvia

2021

Abstract Since the development of GNSS techniques, the determination of a precise quasi-geoid model has become even more actual. In terms of this project the staff of the Institute of Geodesy and Geoinformatics (GGI) has developed a new quasi-geoid model based on DFHRS (Digital Finite-element Height Reference Surface) approach additionally using astrogeodetic measurements – vertical deflections (VD), which can be observed by a Digital zenith camera. This paper evaluates a quasi-geoid model results based on vertical deflections, as a study area using the territory of Latvia: the standard deviation of the solution is equal to 0.006 m with observation residuals after the adjustment of minimum …

2018

The Radar Vegetation Index (RVI) is a well-established microwave metric of vegetation cover. The index utilizes measured linear scattering intensities from co- and cross-polarization and is normalized to ideally range from 0 to 1, increasing with vegetation cover. At long wavelengths (L-band) microwave scattering does not only contain information coming from vegetation scattering, but also from soil scattering (moisture & roughness) and therefore the standard formulation of RVI needs to be revised. Using global level SMAP L-band radar data, we illustrate that RVI runs up to 1.2, due to the pre-factor in the standard formulation not being adjusted to the scattering mechanisms at these lo…

Inflight Radiometric Calibration of New Horizons' Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC)

2017

© 2016 Elsevier Inc. We discuss two semi-independent calibration techniques used to determine the inflight radiometric calibration for the New Horizons’ Multi-spectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC). The first calibration technique compares the measured number of counts (DN) observed from a number of well calibrated stars to those predicted using the component-level calibration. The ratio of these values provides a multiplicative factor that allows a conversation between the preflight calibration to the more accurate inflight one, for each detector. The second calibration technique is a channel-wise relative radiometric calibration for MVIC's blue, near-infrared and methane color channels us…

2019

The HyPlant imaging spectrometer is a high-performance airborne instrument consisting of two sensor modules. The DUAL module records hyperspectral data in the spectral range from 400–2500 nm, which is useful to derive biochemical and structural plant properties. In parallel, the FLUO module acquires data in the red and near infrared range (670–780 nm), with a distinctly higher spectral sampling interval and finer spectral resolution. The technical specifications of HyPlant FLUO allow for the retrieval of sun-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF), a small signal emitted by plants, which is directly linked to their photosynthetic efficiency. The combined use of both HyPlant modules opens up …

Coralline alga reveals first marine record of subarctic North Pacific climate change

2007

[1] While recent changes in subarctic North Pacific climate had dramatic effects on ecosystems and fishery yields, past climate dynamics and teleconnection patterns are poorly understood due to the absence of century-long high-resolution marine records. We present the first 117-year long annually resolved marine climate history from the western Bering Sea/Aleutian Island region using information contained in the calcitic skeleton of the long-lived crustose coralline red alga Clathromorphum nereostratum, a previously unused climate archive. The skeletal δ18O-time series indicates significant warming and/or freshening of surface waters after the middle of the 20th century. Furthermore, the ti…