EOS ASTER thermal infrared band vicarious calibration

Calibration of the five EOS ASTER instrument emission bands (90 m pixels at surface) is being checked during the operational life of the mission using field measurements simultaneous with the image acquisition. For water targets, radiometers, temperature measuring buoys and local radiosonde atmospheric profiles are used to determine the average water surface kinetic temperature over areas roughly 3 X 3 pixels in size. The in-band surface leaving radiance is then projected through the atmosphere using the MODTRAN radiation transfer code allowing an at sensor radiance comparison. The instrument at sensor radiance is also projected to the water surface allowing a comparison in terms of water surface kinetic temperature. Over the first year of operation, the field measurement derived at sensor radiance agrees with the image derived radiance to better than plus/minus 1% for all five bands indicating both stable and accurate operation.