Earth-observing satellite intercomparison using the Radiometric Calibration Test Site at Railroad Valley

Abstract

This paper describes the current ground-based calibration results of Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+), Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI), Terra and Aqua Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), Suomi National Polar orbiting Partnership Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), and Sentinel-2A Multispectral Instrument (MSI), using an automated suite of instruments located at Railroad Valley, Nevada, USA. The period of this study is 2012 to 2016 for MODIS, VIIRS, and ETM+, 2013 to 2016 for OLI, and 2015 to 2016 for MSI. The current results show that all sensors agree with the Radiometric Calibration Test Site (RadCaTS) to within +/- 5% in the solar-reflective regime, except for one band on VIIRS that is within +/- 6%. In the case of ETM+ and OLI, the agreement is within +/- 3%, and, in the case of MODIS, the agreement is within +/- 3.5%. MSI agrees with RadCaTS to within +/- 4.5% in all applicable bands. (C) The Authors. Published by SPIE under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.