In quantitative remote sensing of atmospheric and earth surface parameters with space-borne optically spectral sensors, atmospheric correction and surface (background) influence deduction are key steps for both surface and atmospheric remote sensing, respectively. In principle, these two steps are with same task, i.e., decoupling or separation of respective contributions to spectral radiance (or normalized reflectance) observed by spaceborne sensors. A lot of efforts have been paid to solve this problem. Most of them are using supplementary information obtained by ground-based observation or climatological means for the atmosphere or surfaces. Owing to the limitations of simultaneous surface measurements and temporal and spatial variation of the atmosphere and earth surfaces, above-mentioned efforts are always faced significant error or very limited usefulness. It is commonly recognized that the best or ideal way is simultaneous remote sensing of the atmosphere and surface with spaceborne sensors alone (with least assumptions). There are at least three approaches towards simultaneous remote sensing, i.e., multi-angle measurements, multi-spectral measurements, and multipolarization measurements. In different assumptions, each of them may apply to simultaneous remote sensing. After general discussion, this paper will mainly focus on the approach with multi-spectral observation in Visible-NIR waveband. The present approach includes two steps, the first step is to establish approximate formulae which may explicitly give quantitative contribution of the atmosphere and surface to satellite-borne sensor's measurements. The second step is to establish retrieval scheme by using the above mentioned formulae and the spectral dependence of both the atmospheric optical depth and surface reflectance, details about principle and preliminary numerical simulation are given in following sections.

Date Published: 18 August 1998
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 3501, Optical Remote Sensing of the Atmosphere and Clouds, (18 August 1998); doi: 10.1117/12.577864

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 3501:
Optical Remote Sensing of the Atmosphere and Clouds
Jinxue Wang; Beiying Wu; Toshihiro Ogawa; Zheng-hua Guan, Editor(s)