Unmanned aerial system nadir reflectance and MODIS nadir BRDF-adjusted surface reflectances intercompared over Greenland

Burkhart, John Faulkner; Kylling, Arve; Schaaf, Crystal B.; Wang, Zhuosen; Bogren, Wiley; Storvold, Rune; Solbø, Stian; Pedersen, Christina A.; Gerland, Sebastian

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-11-1575-2017

Articles | Volume 11, issue 4

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-11-1575-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-11-1575-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 11, issue 4

Research article

|

04 Jul 2017

Research article |

| 04 Jul 2017

Unmanned aerial system nadir reflectance and MODIS nadir BRDF-adjusted surface reflectances intercompared over Greenland

John Faulkner Burkhart, Arve Kylling, Crystal B. Schaaf, Zhuosen Wang, Wiley Bogren, Rune Storvold, Stian Solbø, Christina A. Pedersen, and Sebastian Gerland

Data sets

VAUUAV Irradiance over Summit, Greenland J. F. Burkhart, A. Kylling, C. B. Schaaf, Z. Wang, W. Bogren, R. Storvold, S. Sølbo, C. A. Pedersen, and S. Gerland https://doi.org/10.11582/2017.00005

MODIS data NASA https://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/

Surface irradiance data for Summit Greenland NSIDC https://nsidc.org/

Short summary

We present the first use of spectrometer measurements from a drone to assess reflectance and albedo over the Greenland Ice Sheet. In order to measure albedo – a critical parameter in the earth's energy balance – a drone was flown along 200 km transects coincident with Terra and Aqua satellites flying MODIS. We present a direct comparison of UAV-measured reflectance with satellite data over Greenland and provide a new method to study cryospheric surfaces using UAV with spectral instruments.