Publications

Boussidi, B; Cornillon, P; Puggioni, G; Gentemann, C (2019). Determining the AMSR-E SST Footprint from Co-Located MODIS SSTs. REMOTE SENSING, 11(6), 715.

Abstract
This study was undertaken to derive and analyze the advanced microwave scanning radiometer-Earth observing satellite (EOS) (AMSR-E) sea surface temperature (SST) footprint associated with the remote sensing systems (RSS) level-2 (L2) product. The footprint, in this case, is characterized by the weight attributed to each 4x4 km square contributing to the SST value of a given (AMSR-E) pixel. High-resolution L2 SST fields obtained from the moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS), carried on the same spacecraft as AMSR-E, are used as the sub-resolution "ground truth" from which the AMSR-E footprint is determined. Mathematically, the approach is equivalent to a linear inversion problem, and its solution is pursued by means of a constrained least square approximation based on the bootstrap sampling procedure. The method yielded an elliptic-like Gaussian kernel with an aspect ratio approximate to 1.58, very close to the AMSR-E 6.93GHz channel aspect ratio, approximate to 1.74. (The 6.93GHz channel is the primary spectral frequency used to determine SST.) The semi-major axis of the estimated footprint is found to be aligned with the instantaneous field-of-view of the sensor as expected from the geometric characteristics of AMSR-E. Footprints were also analyzed year-by-year and as a function of latitude and found to be stable-no dependence on latitude or on time. Precise knowledge of the footprint is central for any satellite-derived product characterization and, in particular, for efforts to deconvolve the heavily oversampled AMSR-E SST fields and for studies devoted to product validation and comparison. A preliminary analysis suggests that use of the derived footprint will reduce the variance between AMSR-E and MODIS fields compared to the results obtained ignoring the shape and size of the footprint as has been the practice in such comparisons to date.

DOI:
10.3390/rs11060715

ISSN:
2072-4292