A multiangle imaging spectroradiometer for terrestrial remote sensing from the earth observing system

Abstract

The Multiangle Imaging SpectroRadiirnetw (MISR) instrument for the Earth Observing System (EOS) will provide a unique opportunity for studying the ecology and climate of the Earth through the acquisition of systematic, global multlangle imagery in reflected sunlight. MISR employs nine discrete cameras pointed at fixed angles, viewing the nadir direction and forward and aftward along the spacecraft ground track. Each camera is a charge-coupled-device -based pushbroom imager. Within a 7-minute period, every point in a 204-km-wide swath is imaged at the nine viewing angles, ensuring observations acquired under virtually identical illumination and atmospheric conditions. The cameras will image the Earth in the nadir direction and at 30.7", 45.6", 60.0". and 72.5" forward and aftward of the local vertical at the Earth's surface. Images at each angle will be obtained in four spectral bands centered at 440, 550, 670, and 860 nrn. MlSR is capable of taking image data in two different spatial resolution modes: Local Mode, in which selected targets are observed with 240-m spatial sampling, and Global Mode, where the entire sunlit Earth is observed continuously with 1.92-km sampling. Absolute radiometric calibration of the MISR instrument will be performed in-flight using special on-board hardware. The data produced by MlSR will be valuable in a number of scientific discipline areas, and MlSR images and geophysical products will be archived at the EOS Data and Information System to make them available to the broad scientific community. ccc 0899-9457/91/o2oo92-16$04.cQ

Atmospheric correction of ocean color imagery in the Earth Observing System era

“…The multiangle imaging spectroradiometer (MISR) [Diner et al, 1989[Diner et al, , 1991 (Table 1). Thus MISR will measure the radiance exiting the top of the atmosphere in nine directions at four wavelengths.…”

Retrieval of aerosol properties over the ocean using multispectral and multiangle Photopolarimetric measurements from the Research Scanning Polarimeter

“…Although it may be possible to improve the accuracy of the optical thickness retrieval and also to determine the aerosol •ngstr6m exponent by including AVHRR channel-2 radiances [Higurashi and Nakajima, 1999], the results remain sensitive to multiple untested assumptions made in the retrieval [Mishchenko et al, 1999]. New satellite instruments such as the MODerate resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) [King et al, 1992], the Multiangle Imaging Spectro-Radiometer (MISR) [Diner et al, 1991], and the POLarization and Directionality of Earth Reflectances (POLDER) instrument [Goloub et al, 1999;Mukai and Sano, 1999] provide more comprehensive measurements than AVHRR (Table 1). Nonetheless, they are likely to be unable to fully resolve the non-uniqueness problem associated with passive aerosol retrievals from space, nor can they determine the aerosol parameters with the accuracy necessary for long-term monitoring of climate forcings and feedbacks [Hansen et al, 1995].…”

Sensitivity of multiangle remote sensing observations to aerosol sphericity

“…We present in this paper a theoretical study of the ability of multiangle and multispectral remote sensing techniques to distinguish between spherical and nonspherical particles. This study is part of our program to characterize the performance of the multiangle imaging spectroradiometer (MISR) instrument, which is scheduled for launch into polar orbit on the EOS-AM1 platform in June 1998 [Diner et al, 1991].…”