Effect of subpixel-sized cloud on target discrimination from satellite data

The paper reports results of a study of the effects of subpixel-sized clouds on remotely sensed radiance; the NOAA-7 Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer was used in the study. It is noted that it is quite possible that clouds could exist with dimensions of less than 1 x 1 km, which will not be resolvable as discrete pixels filled only by cloud, but which will be recorded as pixels with radiance values not characteristic of the ground target. It is shown that for a clear atmosphere the presence of even 20% cloud produces a fivefold decrease or worse in vegetative index at all scan angles for both pure and mixed targets. These effects are large and show that undetected cloud can produce drastic changes in combinations of recorded radiance used for vegetative assessment.