Correction of thermal imagery for atmospheric effects using aircraft measurement and atmospheric modeling techniques

Abstract

Airborne measurements of atmospheric-path transmission and atmospheric-path (upwelled) radiance in the 8-14-gm band were obtained by applying a multiple altitude and a dual-view angle calibration technique to thermal IR line scanner data. A spectrally corrected LOWTRAN code was used to generate path transmission manudl tiupplwe-ealllteitdu draed imanectheo vda, lcuaelsi bcroatriroensp oofn tdhienrgm toog rthame se mtop airciccoaul nmt efoasr uartemmoesnpths.e ricU esfinfegc tLsO yWieTlRdAs Nc oamnpdu tthede surface temperatures within 0.7 0C of concurrent kinetic temperature readings. The angular calibration method results in similar computed surface temperature errors for 304.8-m (1000-ft) altitude data and increasing by l.20C/304.8-m up to a 1828.8-m (6000-ft) altitude. This paper contains results of a comparative analysis of these approaches for atmospheric calibration.