Improving Access to MODIS Biophysical Science Products for NACP Investigators

MODIS 4 NACP is a NASA-funded project supporting the North American Carbon Program (NACP). The purpose of this Advancing Collaborative Connections for Earth-Sun System Science (ACCESS) project is to provide researchers with Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) biophysical data products that are custom tailored for use in NACP model studies. Standard MODIS biophysical products provide used to improve our understanding on the climate and ecosystem changes. However, direct uses of the MODIS biophysical parameters are constrained by retrieval quality and cloud contamination. Another challenge that NACP users face is acquiring MODIS data in formats and at spatial-temporal resolutions consistent with other data sets they use. We have been working closely with key NACP users to tailor the MODIS products to fit their needs. First, we provide new temporally smoothed and spatially continuous MODIS biophysical data sets. Second, we are distributing MODIS data at suitable spatial-temporal resolutions and in formats consistent with other data integration into model studies

The Operational Land Imager: Spectral Uniformity

No abstract availabl

A Tamarisk Habitat Suitability Map for the Continental US

This paper presents a national-scale map of habitat suitability for a high-priority invasive species, Tamarisk (Tamarisk spp., salt cedar). We successfully integrate satellite data and tens of thousands of field sampling points through logistic regression modeling to create a habitat suitability map that is 90% accurate. This interagency effort uses field data collected and coordinated through the US Geological Survey and nation-wide environmental data layers derived from NASA s MODerate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS). We demonstrate the utilization of the map by ranking the lower 48 US states (and the District of Columbia) based upon their absolute, as well as proportional, areas of highly likely and moderately likely habitat for Tamarisk. The interagency effort and modeling approach presented here could be applied to map other harmful species in the US and globally

Preliminary Results on HAT-P-4, TrES-3, XO-2, and GJ 436 from the NASA EPOXI Mission

EPOXI (EPOCh + DIXI) is a NASA Discovery Program Mission of Opportunity using the Deep Impact flyby spacecraft. The EPOCh (Extrasolar Planet Observation and Characterization) Science Investigation will gather photometric time series of known transiting exoplanet systems from January through August 2008. Here we describe the steps in the photometric extraction of the time series and present preliminary results of the first four EPOCh targets.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures. To appear in the Proceedings of the 253rd IAU Symposium: "Transiting Planets", May 2008, Cambridge, M

The Landsat Data Continuity Mission Operational Land Imager (OLI) Sensor

The Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) is being developed by NASA and USGS and is currently planned for launch in January 2013 [1]. Once on-orbit and checked out, it will be operated by USGS and officially named Landsat-8. Two sensors will be on LDCM: the Operational Land Imager (OLI), which has been built and delivered by Ball Aerospace & Technology Corp (BATC) and the Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS)[2], currently being built and tested at Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) with a planned delivery of Winter 2012. The OLI covers the Visible, Near-IR (NIR) and Short-Wave Infrared (SWIR) parts of the spectrum; TIRS covers the Thermal Infrared (TIR). This paper discusses only the OLI instrument and its pre-launch characterization; a companion paper covers TIRS

Comparison of Landsat-7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) and Earth Observing One (EO-1) Advanced Land Imager

We compare images from the Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) sensor on Landsat-7 and the Advanced Land Imager (ALI) instrument on Earth Observing One (EO-1) over a test site in Rochester, New York. The site contains a variety of features, ranging from water of varying depths, deciduous/coniferous forest, and grass fields, to urban areas. Nearly coincident cloud-free images were collected one minute apart on 25 August 2001. We also compare images of a forest site near Howland, Maine, that were collected on 7 September, 2001. We atmospherically corrected each pair of images with the Second Simulation of the Satellite Signal in the Solar Spectrum (6S) atmosphere model, using aerosol optical thickness and water vapor column density measured by in situ Cimel sun photometers within the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET), along with ozone density derived from the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) on the Earth Probe satellite. We present true-color composites from each instrument that show excellent qualitative agreement between the multispectral sensors, along with grey-scale images that demonstrate a significantly improved ALI panchromatic band. We quantitatively compare ALI and ETM+ reflectance spectra of a grassy field in Rochester and find < or equal to 6% differences in the visible/near infrared and approx. 2% differences in the short wave infrared. Spectral comparisons of forest sites in Rochester and Howland yield similar percentage agreement except for band 1, which has very low reflectance. Principal component analyses and comparison of normalized difference vegetation index histograms for each sensor indicate that the ALI is able to reproduce the information content in the ETM+ but with superior signal-to-noise performance due to its increased 12-bit quantization

The Spectral Response of the Landsat-8 Operational Land Imager

Abstract: This paper discusses the pre-launch spectral characterization of the Operational Land Imager (OLI) at the component, assembly and instrument levels and relates results of those measurements to artifacts observed in the on-orbit imagery. It concludes that the types of artifacts observed and their magnitudes are consistent with the results of the pre-launch characterizations. The OLI in-band response was characterized both at the integrated instrument level for a sampling of detectors and by an analytical stack-up of component measurements. The out-of-band response was characterized using a combination of Focal Plane Module (FPM) level measurements and optical component level measurements due to better sensitivity. One of the challenges of a pushbroom design is to match the spectral responses for all detectors so that images can be flat-fielded regardless of the spectral nature of the targets in the imagery. Spectral variability can induce striping (detector-to-detector variation), banding (FPM-to-FPM variation) and other artifacts in the final data products. Analyses of the measured spectral response showed that the maximum discontinuity between FPMs due to spectral filter differences is 0.35% for selected targets for all bands except for Cirrus, where there is almost no signal. The average discontinuity between FPMs is 0.12% for the same targets. These results were expected and are in accordance with the OLI requirements. Pre-launch testing identified low levels (within requirements) of spectral crosstalk amongst the three HgCdTe (Cirrus, SWIR1 and SWIR2) bands of the OLI and on-orbit data confirms this crosstalk in the imagery. Further post-launch analyses and simulations revealed that the strongest crosstalk effect is from the SWIR1 band to the Cirrus band; about 0.2% of SWIR1 signal leaks into the Cirrus. Though the total crosstalk signal is only a few counts, it is evident in some scenes when the in-band cirrus signal is very weak. In moist cirrus-free atmospheres and over typical land surfaces, at least 30% of the cirrus signal was due to the SWIR1 band. In the SWIR1 and SWIR2 bands, crosstalk accounts for no more than 0.15% of the total signal

An Enhanced TIMESAT Algorithm for Estimating Vegetation Phenology Metrics from MODIS Data

An enhanced TIMESAT algorithm was developed for retrieving vegetation phenology metrics from 250 m and 500 m spatial resolution Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) vegetation indexes (VI) over North America. MODIS VI data were pre-processed using snow-cover and land surface temperature data, and temporally smoothed with the enhanced TIMESAT algorithm. An objective third derivative test was applied to define key phenology dates and retrieve a set of phenology metrics. This algorithm has been applied to two MODIS VIs: Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI). In this paper, we describe the algorithm and use EVI as an example to compare three sets of TIMESAT algorithm/MODIS VI combinations: a) original TIMESAT algorithm with original MODIS VI, b) original TIMESAT algorithm with pre-processed MODIS VI, and c) enhanced TIMESAT and pre-processed MODIS VI. All retrievals were compared with ground phenology observations, some made available through the National Phenology Network. Our results show that for MODIS data in middle to high latitude regions, snow and land surface temperature information is critical in retrieving phenology metrics from satellite observations. The results also show that the enhanced TIMESAT algorithm can better accommodate growing season start and end dates that vary significantly from year to year. The TIMESAT algorithm improvements contribute to more spatial coverage and more accurate retrievals of the phenology metrics. Among three sets of TIMESAT/MODIS VI combinations, the start of the growing season metric predicted by the enhanced TIMESAT algorithm using pre-processed MODIS VIs has the best associations with ground observed vegetation greenup dates