Author:
Jerzy Cierniewski
Affiliation:
Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland
Keyword(s):
Soil, Roughness, Albedo, Satellite Orbit.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Applications and Uses
;
Environment Monitoring
;
Sensor Networks
Abstract:
This study explores the diurnal variation in broadband blue-sky albedo () of soils with respect to their roughness. Uncultivated soils and cultivated ones, after ploughing, harrowing and rolling were studied in Israel and Poland. The relation between of the surfaces and the solar zenith angle allowed to predict the diurnal variation of the surfaces located at a given latitude at any date, and calculate the optimal time TO related to their average diurnal albedo observation. This procedure was used to assess the usefulness of satellites on the sun-synchronous orbits for approximation of for the moderately rough bare soil surfaces, located between the latitude angles of 75° S to 75° N, within an error lower than ±2%. It was found that the satellites on the orbits crossing the Equator at 10:30, such as the MODIS, and like the SPOT and IRS IC, are not very useful for that, while the NOAA-15 on the orbit crossing the Equator at 7:30 is much more useful. The best dates for the col
lection of data with this satellite are 16 April and 28 August, while the worst date is June 22.
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