Compact Thermal Imager (CTI) for Atmospheric Remote Sensing

Dong L. Wu; Donald E. Jennings; Kwong-Kit Choi; Murzy D. Jhabvala; James A. Limbacher; Thomas Flatley; Kyu-Myong Kim; Anh T. La; Ross J. Salawitch; Luke D. Oman; Jie Gong; Thomas R. Holmes; Douglas C. Morton; Tilak Hewagama; Robert J. Swap

doi:10.3390/rs13224578

Remote Sensing (Nov 2021)

Compact Thermal Imager (CTI) for Atmospheric Remote Sensing

Dong L. Wu,
Donald E. Jennings,
Kwong-Kit Choi,
Murzy D. Jhabvala,
James A. Limbacher,
Thomas Flatley,
Kyu-Myong Kim,
Anh T. La,
Ross J. Salawitch,
Luke D. Oman,
Jie Gong,
Thomas R. Holmes,
Douglas C. Morton,
Tilak Hewagama,
Robert J. Swap

Affiliations

Dong L. Wu: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA
Donald E. Jennings: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA
Kwong-Kit Choi: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA
Murzy D. Jhabvala: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA
James A. Limbacher: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA
Thomas Flatley: Genesis Engineering Services, Inc., Lanham, MD 20706, USA
Kyu-Myong Kim: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA
Anh T. La: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA
Ross J. Salawitch: Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA
Luke D. Oman: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA
Jie Gong: Universities Space Research Association, Columbia, MD 21046, USA
Thomas R. Holmes: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA
Douglas C. Morton: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA
Tilak Hewagama: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA
Robert J. Swap: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13224578
Journal volume & issue: Vol. 13, no. 22
p. 4578

Abstract

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The demonstration of a newly developed compact thermal imager (CTI) on the International Space Station (ISS) has provided not only a technology advancement but a rich high-resolution dataset on global clouds, atmospheric and land emissions. This study showed that the free-running CTI instrument could be calibrated to produce scientifically useful radiance imagery of the atmosphere, clouds, and surfaces with a vertical resolution of ~460 m at limb and a horizontal resolution of ~80 m at nadir. The new detector demonstrated an excellent sensitivity to detect the weak limb radiance perturbations modulated by small-scale atmospheric gravity waves. The CTI’s high-resolution imaging was used to infer vertical cloud temperature profiles from a side-viewing geometry. For nadir imaging, the combined high-resolution and high-sensitivity capabilities allowed the CTI to better separate cloud and surface emissions, including those in the planetary boundary layer (PBL) that had small contrast against the background surface. Finally, based on the ISS’s orbit, the stable detector performance and robust calibration algorithm produced valuable diurnal observations of cloud and surface emissions with respect to solar local time during May–October 2019, when the CTI had nearly continuous operation.

Published in Remote Sensing

ISSN: 2072-4292 (Online)
Publisher: MDPI AG
Country of publisher: Switzerland
LCC subjects: Science
Website: http://www.mdpi.com/journal/remotesensing/

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