Calibration and Verification of Remote Sensing Instruments and Observations

Dear Colleagues,

Satellite instruments are usually well designed and calibrated prior to launch. Unfortunately, no matter how sophisticated the instruments are, they degrade with time e.g. due to thermal, mechanical or electrical effects or exposure to UV radiation. It may be possible to correct this degradation by “recalibration“.
Calibration requires a comparison between the measuring instrument and an “absolute” reference standard of known accuracy. On-board calibration units might be interpreted as reference standard, but they are subject to degradation processes as well. Moreover, many satellite sensors (especially in the VIS) are not adjusted by on-board calibration. Once in space the comparison with reference standards of known accuracy is hardly to manage in terms of metrology as a consequence. Many on-the-fly “calibration” methods rely on the analysis of “radiances” over targets. This on-the-fly satellite “calibration” might be better called satellite sensor verification or drift correction (correction of degradation).
For any application dealing with absolute values of atmospheric or surface variables the correction of degradation effects (drift correction) and pre-launch calibration is quite important, not to say a must. Even for the retrieval of relative quantities like the NDVI correction of degradation is an essential issue, because changes in the spectral response function affect the values of NDVI significantly. Further, inter-calibration plays an important role for the generation of homogeneous data sets e.g. across satellite instruments.
Sensor calibration and verification are thus the basis for reliable remote sensing and proper quality of the derived variables and products. However, the pre-launch calibration, on-board calibration and verification (“recalibration”) of satellite instruments are quite challenging tasks. Regular instrument maintenance is feasible for other remote sensing observations, but they are also subject to adverse conditions that induce sophisticated challenges for calibration and verification, as well. Because of the great importance of instrument calibration and verification we believe that a special issue will be very helpful for the remote sensing community.
We would like to invite you to contribute to the scientific discussion and progress in this field by submission of manuscripts, especially with respect to.
-Methods and instruments for pre-launch calibration.
-Methods and instruments for on-board calibration.
-Methods for on-the-fly verification (“recalibration”); the correction of instrument degradation.
-Methods and instruments for remote sensing under adverse environmental or technical conditions.
-Methods for inter-calibration

Dr. Richard Müller
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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