A Cloud Detection Algorithm for Enteromorpha in Yellow Sea: PSEUDO-Invariant Feature-Based Relative Radiometric Correction Algorithm

Cloud interference often occurs in Enteromorpha prolifera (EP) extraction from MODIS images, with the purpose of solving this problem, a pseudo-invariant feature-based relative radiometric correction algorithm was proposed in this paper for cloud detection, and named PIF-RAC. The pseudo- invariant feature pixels were carried out to find the linear relationship of reflectance between target image and reference image in this algorithm. Then, the cloud detection threshold of the target image was corrected by the above established linear relationship and manual cloud detection threshold of the reference image. The experimental results show the automatic cloud detection effect of the proposed algorithm is close to that of the artificial threshold algorithm, which enables to effectively eliminate different kind of cloud interference for EP information from MODIS images. The PIF-RAC is an unsupervised algorithm with a high level of automation, which can be applied on EP disasters remote sensing operational monitoring.