A Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) longwave image of the cold air outbreak (left panel) and snapshots of simulations of five different mesoscale models. Lighter colors correspond to lower longwave radiation (colder temperatures). Overall the large-scale features are well reproduced and most models simulate a transition to a cumulus regime with a cellular structure. See the ...

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Leaf Area Index (LAI) Product (MOD15A2) was evaluated for the growing seasons of 2000 through 2004 in Alaska. The LAI estimate may be affected by three factors not directly related to canopy leaf area: snow melt, cloud contamination and conifer forest versus broadleaf shrub canopy type. Increases in MODIS LAI values occurred during the s...

Drought alert systems for forest fire prevention often rely on vegetation water content (VWC) monitoring which is a key parameter in forest fire hazard. In southern France, VWC is up to now monitored through regular field surveys. Thanks to the theoretical sensitivity of shortwave infrared reflectance to VWC, MODIS satellite data are potentially able to monitor VWC depending on plant species VW...

Endmember selection is the basis for sub-pixel land cover classifications using multiple endmember spectral mixture analysis (MESMA) that adopts variant endmember matrices for each pixel to mitigate errors caused by endmember variability in SMA. A spectral library covering a large number of endmembers can account for endmember variability, but it also lowers the computational efficiency. Theref...

Polynyas and leads are key elements of the wintertime Arctic sea-ice cover. They play a crucial role in surface heat loss, potential ice formation and consequently in the seasonal sea-ice budget. While polynyas are generally sufficiently large to be observed with passive microwave satellite sensors, the monitoring of narrow leads requires the use of data at a higher spatial resolution. We apply...

10 11 The major problem with high spatial resolution satellite images from Landsat 7 is that 12 imagery is not available very often (i.e. every 16 days or longer) and the coverage area is 13 relatively small (swath width 185km), while images of lower spatial resolution from MODIS are 14 available daily and one image covers a relatively large area (swath width 2,330km). This paper 15 considers t...

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...

Scanning radiometers on earth-orbiting satellites are used to measure the chlorophyll content of the oceans via analysis of the water-leaving radiances. These radiances are very sensitive to the atmospheric correction process, which in turn is polarization dependent. The image created by a scanning radiometer is usually composed of successive scans by two mirror sides and one or several detecto...