Potentialities in remote sensing of the polarization of the reflected solar light as illustrated from the U.S. space shuttle measurements

J. C. Roger; Richard P. Santer; Maurice Herman; Jean Luc Deuze

doi:10.1117/12.138838

8 December 1992 Potentialities in remote sensing of the polarization of the reflected solar light as illustrated from the U.S. space shuttle measurements

J. C. Roger, Richard P. Santer, Maurice Herman, Jean Luc Deuze

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 1747, Polarization and Remote Sensing; (1992) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.138838
Event: San Diego '92, 1992, San Diego, CA, United States

Abstract

During the four American Space Shuttle missions of 1985, the crewmembers took pictures of the Earth in polarized light. Selected images were digitalized and a first step was devoted to evaluate the quality of the data and to convert the numerical counts into radiances and degrees of polarization. For this last purpose, different techniques of in-flight calibration were analyzed and applied to suitable scenes. The analysis of the selected data first confirmed the previous observations over bright and homogeneous targets such as snow and sand. Indeed, we observe a predicted low polarization over these surfaces. Over land, the general situation is more confusing with equal contributions of the ground and of the atmosphere. Nevertheless, for the polarized reflectance, the atmosphere dominates outside of the specular direction while in this region the reflection on the surface is predominant around the Brewster angle. At last, during an atmospheric contamination by forest fires, the analysis of the degree of polarization provided a clear and accurate characterization of the aerosols.

Citation Download Citation

J. C. Roger, Richard P. Santer, Maurice Herman, and Jean Luc Deuze "Potentialities in remote sensing of the polarization of the reflected solar light as illustrated from the U.S. space shuttle measurements", Proc. SPIE 1747, Polarization and Remote Sensing, (8 December 1992); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.138838

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