New approach for radiometric cross calibration of satellite-borne radiometers

Approaches for establishing the absolute calibration of a newly deployed. satellite-home radiometer have Varied front aircraft under-flights with previously calibrated sensors to vicarious calibration over known, benign backgrounds, utilizing radiative transfer models to generate top-of-atmosphere radiances. In this paper, vie demonstrate the efficacy of this approach by presenting results of the cross-comparison of two sensors that are known to be well calibrated, Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS). We focus on the results of the cross-comparison between MODIS and AIRS for the ranges of atmospheric and surface conditions embodied in a variety of common Earth scenes in this paper. We also investigate the dependence of the quality of the cross-calibration process as a function of the surface emissivity spectrum, phenomenology, and atmospheric conditions, identifying under vi,hat conditions the cross-calibration process I. S effective.