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Title: ASTER THERMAL INFRARED OBSERVATIONS OVER NEW MEXICO

Author
item Schmugge, Thomas
item FRENCH, ANDREW - NASA/GSFC
item JACOB, FREDERIC - PRIVATE CONSULTANT
item OGAWA, KENTA - HITACHI LTD
item Ritchie, Jerry
item Chopping, Mark
item Rango, Albert

Submitted to: Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 11/15/2002
Publication Date: 12/3/2002
Citation: Schmugge, T.J., French, A.N., Jacob, F., Ogawa, K., Ritchie, J.C., Chopping, M.J., Rango, A. 2002. ASTER thermal infrared observations over New Mexico. In: M. Owe, G. D'Urso, and L. Toulios (eds.), Remote Sensing for Agriculture, Ecosystems, and Hydrology IV, Proceedings of SPIE 4879:166-173.

Interpretive Summary: This is proceedings paper which presents some the early results from the ASTER sensor at our Jornada Experimental Range test site. These results indicate that the temperature calibration of the sensor is very good and that the data can be used to estimate large area emissivity values.

Technical Abstract: More than a dozen clear sky ASTER scenes over the Jornada, New Mexico LTER site have been acquired since the launch of NASA's Terra satellite in December, 1999. The Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission Reflectance Radiometer (ASTER) instrument has 5 channels in the 8 to 12 micrometer wave band with 90 meter resolution. To support the ASTER overpasses there were simultaneous field campaigns for the 5/09/00, 5/12/01, 9/17/01 and 5/15/02 scenes. Also, data from an airborne simulator, MASTER, were obtained for the 5/12/01 and 5/15/02 scenes to provide high resolution (3 m) data roughly coincident with ASTER. The Jornada Experimental Range is a long term ecological reserve (LTER) and is at the northern end of the Chihuahuan desert. The site is typical of a desert grassland where the main vegetation components are grass and shrubs. The White Sands National Monument is also within several of the scenes. The Temperature Emissivity Separation (TES) algorithm was used to extract emissivity values from the ASTER data for 5 sites on the Jornada and for the gypsum sand at White Sands. The results are in good agreement with values calculated from the lab spectra for gypsum and with each other. The results for sites in the Jornada show reasonable agreement with the lab results when the mixed pixel problem is taken into account. These results indicate ASTER and TES are working very well. The surface brightness temperatures from ASTER were in reasonable agreement with measurements made on the ground during the field campaigns.