Summary

Description

This data set consists of land surface brightness temperatures (TBs) derived from Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM) and Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper+ (ETM+) thermal bands. The Landsat data coincided with the SMEX02 campaign and were acquired once per day on 23 June, 1 July, 8 July, 16 July, and 17 July 2002 over the Walnut Creek watershed, Iowa, USA. The data collectively cover 41.69° N to 42.73° N and 93.16° W to 93.84° N. Landsat 7 ETM+ data have 60 m spatial resolution. Landsat 5 TM data have 30 m spatial resolution. The investigators used the MODTRAN 4.1 radiative transfer model to correct the original Level-1G radiances for atmospheric effects; then they converted radiances to TBs. Data are unsigned integer, band-interleaved-by-line (BIL), binary values, scaled by 100. Data are available via FTP. These data were collected as part of a validation study for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer - Earth Observing System (AMSR-E). AMSR-E is a mission instrument launched aboard NASA's Aqua Satellite on 04 May 2002. AMSR-E validation studies linked to SMEX are designed to evaluate the accuracy of AMSR-E soil moisture data. Specific validation objectives include assessing and refining soil moisture algorithm performance; verifying soil moisture estimation accuracy; investigating the effects of vegetation, surface temperature, topography, and soil texture on soil moisture accuracy; and determining the regions that are useful for AMSR-E soil moisture measurements.