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Title: COMPARISON OF LAND SURFACE EMISSIVITY AND RADIOMETRIC TEMPERATURE DERIVED FROM MODIS AND ASTER SENSORS

Author
item JACOB, FREDERIC - PRIVATE CONSULTANT
item PETITCOLIN, FRANCOIS - ACRI-ST
item Schmugge, Thomas
item VERMOTE, ERIC - UNIV OF MD
item French, Andrew
item OGAWA, KENTA - HITACHI LTD

Submitted to: Remote Sensing of Environment
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 11/28/2003
Publication Date: 3/30/2004
Citation: Jacob, F., Petitcolin, F., Schmugge, T., Vermote, E., French, A., Ogawa, K. 2004. Comparison of land surface emissivity and radiometric temperature derived from MODIS and ASTER sensors. Remote Sensing of Environment. 90(2):137-152.

Interpretive Summary: With two sensors operating on the same platform it is essential to verify that they can produce similar results. This study does that for the thermal infrared portions of these instruments, in terms of the surface temperature and surface emissivity determinations. The results indicate that they are indeed giving similar results. This is very important because of the different spatial at which they operate, the 1 km scale for MODIS and the 90 m scale for ASTER. Thus the results verified at the high resolution scale with field measurements can be scaled up the global scale with the data from the MODIS sensor.

Technical Abstract: This study compares surface emissivity and radiometric temperature products derived using data collected with the MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission Reflectance Radiometer (ASTER) sensors, on the Earth Observation System (EOS) - Terra satellite. Two study sites were selected: a semi-arid area located northern Chihuahuan desert in the USA, and a savanna landscape located in central Africa. Atmospheric corrections were performed using different strategies that were driven by the instrumental features of each sensor. The MODIS products were then computed using a designed Temperature Independent Spectral Indices of Emissivity (TISIE) method. The ASTER products were derived using the Temperature Emissivity Separation (TES) algorithm. The MODIS and ASTER radiometric temperature products were in good agreement when the atmospheric corrections were similar, with differences lower than 0.7 K. The comparison of emissivity estimates was performed for MODIS / ASTER matching bands, at 8.5 and 11 micrometer. The emissivity estimates agreed well at 11 micrometer, although the range of the MODIS values was larger than that of the ASTER values. At 8.5 micrometer, the differences between the estimates were larger as compared to 11 micrometer, but the comparison results were acceptable, and the ranges of emissivities from both sensors were the same.