EOS Validation Program

Institution: University of Maryland
Phone: (301) 405-4556
E-mail: sliang@eng.umd.edu

Charles Walthall, USDA Agricultural Research Service
Craig Daughtry, USDA Agricultural Research Service

Final Report, June 2001

We propose to validate the MODIS and MISR land surface reflectance and albedo products (MOD09, MOD43, MIS05). Our validation effort will utilize three approaches: (1) field measurements of land surface reflectance and albedo at an ongoing site at the USDA Beltsville Agriculture Research Center and at EOS field campaign as funding permits; (2) scaling of point/plot measurements to MODIS and MISR pixel sizes using high resolution imagery (aircraft sensor, LANDSAT7, ASTER, etc); and (3) comparisons with two independent algorithms that retrieve (a) surface reflectance, BRDF and spectral albedo simultaneously through coupled surface-atmosphere modeling and (b) surface broadband albedos from TOA narrowband measurements without performing atmospheric correction. This will produce an end-to-end error analysis that will document the strength, weakness and error sensitivities of the MODIS and MISR algorithms. We will also develop algorithms for a small number of new albedo products that are more directly usable by researchers in other disciplines.