Combined infrared stereo and laser ranging cloud measurements from Shuttle Mission STS-85

Multiangle remote sensing provides a wealth of information for Earth and climate monitoring, such as the ability to measure the height of cloud tops through stereoscopic imaging. As technology advances so do the options for developing spacecraft instrumentation with sufficient versatility to meet the demands associated with multiangle measurements. One such instrument is the Infrared Spectral Imaging Radiometer, which flew as part of Mission STS-85 of the Space Shuttle Columbia in 1997 and was the first Earth-observing radiometer to incorporate an uncooled microbolometer array detector as its image sensor. Specifically, a method for computing cloud-top height with a precision of 620 m from the multispectral stereo measurements acquired during this flight has been developed, and the results are compared with coincident direct laser ranging measurements from the Shuttle Laser Altimeter. Mission STS-85 was the first space flight to combine laser ranging and thermal IR camera systems for cloud remote sensing

[1]  Dieter Lorenz,et al.  On the feasibility of cloud stereoscopy and wind determination with the Along-Track Scanning Radiometer , 1985 .

[2]  Bernard Pinty,et al.  Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) instrument description and experiment overview , 1998, IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote. Sens..

[3]  David A. Santek,et al.  Cloud-Top Heights from GOES-8 and GOES-9 Stereoscopic Imagery , 1998 .

[4]  A. F. Hasler,et al.  A Satellite Stereoscopic Technique to Estimate Tropical Cyclone Intensity , 1983 .

[5]  D. Harding,et al.  Observations of the Earth's topography from the Shuttle Laser Altimeter (SLA): Laser-pulse Echo-recovery measurements of terrestrial surfaces , 1998 .

[6]  R. J. Ondrejka,et al.  NOTE ON THE STEREO INTERPRETATION OF NIMBUS II APT PHOTOGRAPHY , 1966 .

[7]  W. Shenk,et al.  Stereographic cloud heights from imagery of SMS/GOES satellites , 1978 .

[8]  James D. Spinhirne,et al.  Space Based Atmospheric Measurements by GLAS , 1997 .

[9]  Steven J. Nieman,et al.  A Comparison of Several Techniques to Assign Heights to Cloud Tracers , 1993 .

[10]  Soroosh Sorooshian,et al.  Estimating cloud top height and spatial displacement from scan‐synchronous GOES images using simplified IR‐based stereoscopic analysis , 2000 .

[11]  A. F. Hasler,et al.  Automatic Analysis of Stereoscopic Satellite Image Pairs for Determination of Cloud-Top Height and Structure , 1991 .

[12]  Tetsuya Theodore. Fujita,et al.  Principle of stereoscopic height computations and their applications to stratospheric cirrus over severe thunderstorms , 1982 .

[13]  Victor S. Whitehead,et al.  Cloud height contouring from Apollo 6 photography. , 1969 .

[14]  I. J. Barton,et al.  The along track scanning radiometer for ERS-1-scan geometry and data simulation , 1990 .

[15]  W. Shenk,et al.  stereographic cloud analysis from Apollo 6 photographs over a cold front , 1975 .

[16]  A. F. Hasler.  Stereographic observations from geosynchronous satellites - An important new tool for the atmospheric sciences , 1981 .

[17]  Alfred J Prata,et al.  Cloud-top height determination using ATSR data , 1997 .

[18]  Stereoscopic observations of hurricanes and tornadic thunderstorms from geosynchronous satellites , 1983 .

[19]  A. F. Hasler,et al.  Stereoscopic observations from meteorological satellites , 1983 .

[20]  R. Davies,et al.  Feasibility and Error Analysis of Cloud Motion Wind Extraction from Near-Simultaneous Multiangle MISR Measurements , 2001 .

[21]  J. Bufton.  Laser altimetry measurements from aircraft and spacecraft , 1989, Proc. IEEE.

[22]  J. Spinhirne,et al.  Cloud top remote sensing by airborne lidar. , 1982, Applied optics.

[23]  J. Muller,et al.  New directions in earth observing: Scientific applications of multiangle remote sensing , 1999 .

[24]  Takashi Adachi,et al.  Stereoscopic Analysis of Photographs Taken by NIMBUS II APT System (II): An Improvement in the Method of the Stereoscopic Analysis@@@ステレオ解析法の改良 , 1968 .