MISI and Landsat ETM+: Thermal calibration and atmospheric correction

Two new remote sensing instruments were used for the first time this past summer, both with novel thermal imaging capabilities. NASA\u27s Landsat ETM+ (Enhanced Thematic Mapper+), the latest in the series of Earth imaging satellites, has both higher radiometric and spatial resolution than ever before. RIT\u27s MISI (Modular Imaging Spectrometer Instrument) is an airborne sensor with a unique thermal spectrometer. The images from both will be used for a wide variety of applications. The purpose of this research is three-fold; to ensure MISI thermal imagery is calibrated by developing a laboratory calibration process, to develop techniques to remove the effects of the atmosphere being imaged, and to ensure that Landsat thermal imagery is calibrated by using the calibrated MISI imagery. Although we failed to successfully calibrate MISI in the lab, using ground truth the instrument was empirically calibrated to within O.5K. Two different atmospheric correction techniques, a multiple-altitude technique and a multi-band technique, were used on the calibrated imagery and found to successfully predict ground temperature to within 1.4K and O.8K, respectively. To verify the Landsat calibration, MISI images were projected to space-reaching radiance to compare with Landsat. Although over the three collects this summer, we did find a consistent difference between MISI and Landsat (RMS ofO.6K) more data must be taken before we are convinced that Landsat\u27s calibration coefficients need updating. This being the inaugural flight seasons for both instruments makes much of this data very preliminary but the tools are in place for future flight seasons