Radiometric calibration archive for Landsat TM

For more than ten years, Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) data has been collected of the Earth's surface. Although equipped with an internal calibrator, routine temporal analysis of the instrument's radiometry has not been performed. Recently, a project has been initiated to recover TM radiometric calibration data from the Landsat archive to form a TM calibration archive. This archive consists of calibration data collected at several different time scales: single orbit, instrument lifetime, and an intermediate scale. Analysis of these data is providing insights into how detector response, as well as internal calibrator performance, has changed over time. Initial results are shown that indicate changes in detector gain and characterization of instrument anomalies within a single orbit. Information obtained from this project will allow a more accurate calibration of data that is already in the Landsat archive. Additionally, it will directly impact development of correction algorithms for Landsat 7.