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Dear Colleagues,

The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) stands as a pivotal instrument aboard the Suomi National Polar-Orbiting Partnership (SNPP), NOAA-20, NOAA-21, and future JPSS spacecrafts. Following the successful launch in November 2023, NOAA-21 now joins SNPP and NOAA-20 in maintaining Low-Earth-Orbit (LEO) satellite observations. VIIRS captures moderate-resolution, radiometrically accurate global images using 22 visible/near-infrared and infrared bands, spanning wavelengths from 0.41 to 12.5 microns. The strategic alignment of SNPP, NOAA-20, and NOAA-21 satellites, positioned along the same sun-synchronous orbit, results in a threefold increase in VIIRS' global coverage.

Commencing with SNPP in 2011, VIIRS has consistently delivered high-quality global observations for over a decade, extending its support to diverse applications. These applications encompass weather forecasting, environmental monitoring, ocean and land studies, climate change research, and the monitoring of hazards such as hurricanes, fires, volcanoes, floods, storms, and tornadoes, as well as facilitating disaster relief efforts. Advances in VIIRS calibration/validation and applications emerge in a wide range of frontiers. The aim of this Remote Sensing Special Issue is to further explore the frontiers in remote sensing techniques and applications enabled by VIIRS onboard SNPP, NOAA-20, and NOAA-21, and the prelaunch activities for VIIIRS on future JPSS missions. The topics of interest for this Special Issue include, but are not limited to:

Development of calibration techniques and using the results from the on-orbit verification in the post-launch check-out, calibration and validation, and long-term monitoring of SNPP, NOAA-20 and NOAA-21 VIIRS sensor data records.
Prelaunch calibration and validation work for NOAA-21 VIIRS and future JPSS VIIRS missions.
Applications of VIIRS data to empower operational environmental monitoring and numerical weather forecasting.
Applications of VIIRS data to provide insight into the properties and dynamics of different geophysical phenomena, including aerosol and cloud properties, sea, land and ice surface temperatures, ice motion, fires, albedo of Earth, and others.
Applications of VIIRS data to monitor and investigate spatial and temporal changes and properties in surface vegetation, land cover/use, the hydrologic cycle, and the Earth's energy budget over both regional and global scales.
Applications of VIIRS day/night band data in studies involving both geophysical and social economic activities.
GEO-LEO and LEO-LEO data fusion involving VIIRS to better understand the Earth observation dynamics.
Application of machine learning and artificial intelligence methodologies using VIIRS data.

Both submissions of original manuscripts of the latest research results and review contributions are welcome.

Dr. Xi Shao
Dr. Xiaoxiong Xiong
Dr. Changyong Cao
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Remote Sensing is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Related Special Issue

Published Papers (1 paper)

Research

23 pages, 11502 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Evaluation of VIIRS Thermal Emissive Bands Long-Term Calibration Stability and Inter-Sensor Consistency Using Radiative Transfer Modeling

by Feng Zhang, Xi Shao, Changyong Cao, Yong Chen, Wenhui Wang, Tung-Chang Liu and Xin Jing

Remote Sens. 2024, 16(7), 1271; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs16071271 - 4 Apr 2024

Viewed by 455

Abstract

This study investigates the long-term stability of the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (S-NPP) Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) moderate-resolution Thermal Emissive Bands (M TEBs; M12–M16) covering a period from February 2012 to August 2020. It also assesses inter-sensor consistency of the VIIRS M TEBs among three satellites (S-NPP, NOAA-20, and NOAA-21) over eight months spanning from 18 March to 30 November 2023. The field of interest is limited to the ocean surface between 60°S and 60°N, specifically under clear-sky conditions. Taking radiative transfer modeling (RTM) as the transfer reference, we employed the Community Radiative Transfer Model (CRTM) to simulate VIIRS TEB brightness temperature (BTs), incorporating European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) reanalysis data as inputs. Our results reveal two key findings. Firstly, the reprocessed S-NPP VIIRS TEBs exhibit a robust long-term stability, as demonstrated through analyses of the observation minus background BT differences (O-B ∆BTs) between VIIRS measurements (O) and CRTM simulations (B). The drifts of the O-B BT differences are consistently less than 0.102 K/Decade across all S-NPP VIIRS M TEB bands. Notably, observations from VIIRS M14 and M16 stand out with drifts well within 0.04 K/Decade, reinforcing their exceptional reliability for climate change studies. Secondly, excellent inter-sensor consistency among these three VIIRS instruments is confirmed through the double-difference analysis method (O-O). This method relies on the O-B BT differences obtained from daily VIIRS operational data. The mean inter-VIIRS O-O BT differences remain within 0.08 K for all M TEBs, except for M13. Even in the case of M13, the O-O BT differences between NOAA-21 and NOAA-20/S-NPP have values of 0.312 K and 0.234 K, respectively, which are comparable to the 0.2 K difference observed in overlapping TEBs between VIIRS and MODIS. These disparities are primarily attributed to the significant differences in the Spectral Response Function (SRF) of NOAA-21 compared to NOAA-20 and S-NPP. It is also found that the remnant scene temperature dependence of NOAA-21 versus NOAA-20/S-NPP M13 O-O BT difference after accounting for SRF difference is ~0.0033 K/K, an order of magnitude smaller than the corresponding rates in the direct BT comparisons between NOAA-21 and NOAA-20/S-NPP. Our study confirms the versatility and effectiveness of the RTM-based TEB quality evaluation method in assessing long-term sensor stability and inter-sensor consistency. The double-difference approach effectively mitigates uncertainties and biases inherent to CRTM simulations, establishing a robust mechanism for assessing inter-sensor consistency. Moreover, for M12 operating as a shortwave infrared channel, it is found that the daytime O-B BT differences of S-NPP M12 exhibit greater seasonal variability compared to the nighttime data, which can be attributed to the idea that M12 radiance is affected by the reflected solar radiation during the daytime. Furthermore, in this study, we’ve also characterized the spatial distributions of inter-VIIRS BT differences, identifying variations among VIIRS M TEBs, as well as spatial discrepancies between the daytime and nighttime data. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advancements in Remote Sensing Techniques and Applications Utilizing Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suites (Second Edition))

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