A Synergistic Approach to Atmospheric Compensation of Neon's Airborne Hyperspectral Imagery Utilizing an Airborne Solar Spectral Irradiance Radiometer

A wide variety of critical information regarding bioclimate, biodiversity, and biogeochemistry is embedded in airborne hyperspectral imagery. Most, if not all of the primary signal relies upon first deriving the surface reflectance of land cover and vegetation from measured hyperspectral radiance. This places stringent requirements on terrain, and atmospheric compensation algorithms to accurately derive surface reflectance properties. An observatory designed to measure bioclimate, biodiversity, and biogeochemistry variables from surface reflectance must take great care in developing an approach which chooses algorithms with the highest accuracy, along with providing those algorithms with data necessary to describe the physical mechanisms that affect the measured at sensor radiance. The Airborne Observation Platform (AOP) part of the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) is developing such an approach. NEON is a continental-scale ecological observation platform designed to collect and disseminate data to enable the understanding and forecasting of the impacts of climate change, land use change, and invasive species on ecology. The instrumentation package used by the AOP includes a visible and shortwave infrared hyperspectral imager, waveform LiDAR, and high resolution (RGB) digital camera. In addition to airborne measurements, ground-based CIMEL sun photometers will be used to help characterize atmospheric aerosol loading, and ground validation measurements with field spectrometers will be made at select NEON sites. While the core instrumentation package provides critical information to derive surface reflectance of land surfaces and vegetation, the addition of a Solar Spectral Irradiance Radiometer (SSIR) is being investigated as an additional source of data to help identify and characterize atmospheric aerosol, and cloud contributions contributions to the radiance measured by the hyperspectral imager. The addition of the SSIR provides the opportunity to conduct synergistic research which helps to improve ecological data products, while simultaneously measuring radiative properties key to understanding climate. We will present measurements from flights conducted with an SSIR, and explore methods to improve atmospheric compensation of the hyperspectral imagery.