Atmospheric corrections and ground reflectance recovery for airborne visible/infrared imaging spectrometer (AVIRIS) data: MAC Europe'91

It is now well established that a valid atmospheric correction procedure is required for a physically based analysis of measured high spectral resolution remote sensing data. While the theory of radiative transfer in the atmosphere is now well understood, remaining difficulties are due to the inaccurate knowledge of the state of the atmosphere at the time of acquisition. We have taken the opportunity of the MAC Europe to compare two atmospheric correction procedures applied to Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) data. Atmospheric condition estimates were acquired concurrently with the overflights. These in situ measurements were used to constrain the LOWTRAN-7 and 5S radiative transfer codes to recover the spectral reflectance at ground level in the 400- to 2500-nm region. The influence of various input atmospheric parameters such as aerosols and water vapor amounts on reflectance recovery is evaluated. The accuracy of the radiative transfer code based recovery is discussed using ground reflectance measurements acquired at the Camargue site over sunflower, alfalfa, and wheat crops during the AVIRIS flights.