Title of Dissertation: MAPPING PHOTOSYNTHETICALLY ACTIVE RADIATION (PAR) USING MULTIPLE REMOTE SENSING DATA Tao Zheng, Doctor of Philosophy, 2007 Dissertation directed by: Dr. Shunlin Liang, Professor Department of Geography Incident Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PAR) is an important parameter for terrestrial ecosystem models. Presently, deriving PAR using remotely sensed data is the onl...

Satellite-based temperature measurements are an important indicator for global climate change studies over large areas. Records from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) and (Advanced) Along Track Scanning Radiometer ((A)ATSR) are providing long-term time series information. Assessing the quality of remote sensing-based temperat...

[1] The February 2001 eruption of Cleveland Volcano, Alaska allowed for comparisons of volcanic ash detection using two-band thermal infrared (10–12 mm) remote sensing from MODIS, AVHRR, and GOES 10. Results show that high latitude GOES volcanic cloud sensing the range of about 50 to 65 N is significantly enhanced. For the Cleveland volcanic clouds the MODIS and AVHRR data have zenith angles 6–...

Past studies based on the NOAA/AVHRR and GOES I-M imager instruments have documented the link between certain storm top features referred to as the “cold-U/V” shape in the 10–12 μm IR band imagery and plumes of increased 3.7/3.9 μm band reflectivity. Later, similar features in the 3.7/3.9 μm band have been documented in the AVHRR/3 1.6 μm band imagery. The present work focuses on storm top obse...

Remote sensing can provide estimates of spatially distributed actual evapotranspiration (ET) at different spatial scales. Methods that combine remotely sensed observations with other ground-based information on land and atmospheric properties usually allow improved estimates of spatially distributed evapotranspiration (ET) than when remotely sensed data are used alone. Spatial resolution of rem...

Considering a forest cover (Balsam Fir with various densities) we analyze the sensitivity of several vegetation indices to ozone absorption using physical simulations in the spectral bands of MODIS, VEGETATION and AVHRR sensors. Except for the EVI, MSR and GARI, the results indicate that all the vegetation indices used in this study normalize the ozone absorption in particular TSARVI and GEMI. ...

[1] We establish the potential of TERRA-1 Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) data for discriminating and mapping tropical secondary forest regeneration stages in the Brazilian Legal Amazon, in terms of both their age and pathway. In using MODIS data, many difficulties encountered in local to regional scale mapping and discrimination of regeneration stage using NOAA Advanced Very H...

Two fixed-threshold (CCRS and ESA) and three contextual (GIGLIO, IGBP, and MODIS) algorithms were used for fire detection with Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) data acquired over Canada during the 1995 fire season. The CCRS algorithm was developed for the boreal ecosystem, while the other four are for global application. The MODIS algorithm, although developed specifically for u...

The German Aerospace Center’s (DLR) TIMELINE project aims to develop an operational processing and data management environment to process 30 years of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)—Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) raw data into L1b, L2 and L3 products. This article presents the current status of the fully automated L2 active fire hotspot detection process...