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The effect of spatial resolution upon cloud optical property retrievals. I - Optical thicknessHigh spectral and spatial resolution Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) imagery is used to study the effects of spatial resolution upon fair weather cumulus cloud optical thickness retrievals. As a preprocessing step, a variation of the Gao and Goetz three-band ratio technique is used to discriminate clouds from the background. The combination of the elimination of cloud shadow pixels and using the first derivative of the histogram allows for accurate cloud edge discrimination. The data are progressively degraded from 20 m to 960 m spatial resolution. The results show that retrieved cloud area increases with decreasing spatial resolution. The results also show that there is a monotonic decrease in retrieved cloud optical thickness with decreasing spatial resolution. It is also demonstrated that the use of a single, monospectral reflectance threshold is inadequate for identifying cloud pixels in fair weather cumulus scenes and presumably in any inhomogeneous cloud field. Cloud edges have a distribution of reflectance thresholds. The incorrect identification of cloud edges significantly impacts the accurate retrieval of cloud optical thickness values.
Document ID
19930063746
Acquisition Source
Legacy CDMS
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Feind, Rand E.
(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Christopher, Sundar A.
(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Welch, Ronald M.
(South Dakota School of Mines and Technology Rapid City, United States)
Date Acquired
August 16, 2013
Publication Date
January 1, 1992
Publication Information
Publication: In: IGARSS '92; Proceedings of the 12th Annual International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, Houston, TX, May 26-29, 1992. Vol. 1 (A93-47551 20-43)
Publisher: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.
Subject Category
Meteorology And Climatology
Accession Number
93A47743
Funding Number(s)
CONTRACT_GRANT: NAS5-30768
CONTRACT_GRANT: NAS5-31718
CONTRACT_GRANT: NAS5-30958
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other

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