ISSN 2070-7401 (Print), ISSN 2411-0280 (Online)
Sovremennye problemy distantsionnogo zondirovaniya Zemli iz kosmosa
CURRENT PROBLEMS IN REMOTE SENSING OF THE EARTH FROM SPACE

  

Sovremennye problemy distantsionnogo zondirovaniya Zemli iz kosmosa, 2014, Vol. 11, No. 4, pp. 300-309

Vector-coordinate approach to determination of viewing geometry for accounting the impact of large-scale roughness of land surface on its microwave emissivity

I.V. Matelenok1 , V.V. Melentyev1,2 
1 State University of Aerospace Instrumentation, Saint-Petersburg, Russia
2 International Centre for the Promotion of UNIDO Programmes and Projects of State Polytechnic University, Saint-Petersburg, Russia
A new vector-coordinate approach to determination of viewing geometry for passive microwave remote sensing was designed. The approach allows to retrieve values of effective incidence angle and polarization rotation angle from the coordinates of points on the viewing beam thereby being applicable to accounting the impact of large-scale roughness of land surface on its microwave emissivity in case of satellite as well as aerial sounding. The approach was tested on the site in North-Eastern Yakutiya for AMSR-E viewing geometry. It is shown that the parameters of viewing geometry required for correction of microwave remote sensing data are effectively retrieved from digital elevation models using the proposed approach. For typical ascending orbit of Aqua satellite, results of calculations of the effective incidence angle completely agree with results of calculations obtained by a traditional vector approach. In the test site with elevations of 0 – 527 m, the effective incidence angle varies from 29,8 to 85,5° (mean value is 54,2°, standard deviation is 6,6°), the absolute value of the polarization rotation angle ranges between 0 and 29,7° (mean value is 4,4°, standard deviation is 4,9°).
Keywords: aspect, brightness temperature, facet, incidence angle, microwave radiometer, relief, remote sensing, roughness, slope
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