Sunphotometer Aerosol Optical Depth and Ozone - Australian field sites

The acquisition of sunphotometer measurements are critical to capture vital data on atmospheric properties during airborne hyperspectral imaging campaigns as well as for measurements coinciding with the overpass of satellite sensors. The atmospheric properties measured are used in atmospheric correction of the remotely sensed image data. This data is primarily for input into atmospheric correction systems. It may also prove of use in validation of aerosol products such as MOD04 and the reflectance change method developed as part of CRC-SI project 4.1 which may be integrated into the Auscover 19 band reflectance product processing. It can also be used to check methods that produce water vapour directly from the data (SODA). The MicroTops instruments referred to here capture solar radiance data in 5 wavelengths which are used to extract information on aerosol optical thickness and water vapour content. These two key parameters of interest are used as inputs for the atmospheric correction of remotely sensed image data.

Credit
The following organisations contributed to the data collection: Joint Remote Sensing Research Project, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Curtin University, University of Adelaide and CSIRO.
This work was funded by the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN), an Australian Government National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) project.

Purpose
Between 2011 and 2015, TERN Landscapes collected field, airborne hyperspectral and airborne LiDAR data coincidently from several locations across Australia (formally known as the AusCover Supersites) to be used for upscaling ground gathered observations, and to help calibrate satellite sensors passing overhead.