Characterisation Campaign at the Gobabeb RadCalNet Site in Support of Satellite Calibration and Validation Activities

With increasing use of satellite-derived data in climate and Earth monitoring, the importance of reliable and traceable radiometric and spectral information is key. Due to the difficulties of maintaining instrument calibration post-launch, vicarious calibration sites play a vital part in ensuring the stability and interoperability of satellite sensor data.

RadCalNet, the Radiometric Calibration Network established through the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites Working Group on Calibration and Validation (CEOS-WGCV), provides a network of, currently four, instrumented ground reference sites providing users with bottom and top-of-atmosphere (BOA and TOA) reflectance measurements every 30 minutes in 10 nm spectral intervals and for nadir view. (For all sites, more detailed spectral information and off-nadir reflectances can be obtained from site owners). It is a key aspect of RadCalNet that the sites document their traceability to the International System of Units (SI) and that they provide traceable uncertainties associated with individual observations. These documents and uncertainties are peer reviewed by the RadCalNet working group.  Each RadCalNet site provides ground reflectance observations that are propagated to TOA through a centralised processing system. RadCalNet has over 300 active users who value the available information.

Gobabeb, in Namibia, is one of these four sites, given the reference GONA. GONA was the first site that was established as a new RadCalNet site (the other sites were pre-existing) and the location was determined from a global survey to find suitable sites, primarily due to spatial uniformity and the probability of suitable atmospheric conditions, such as clear skies. With an automatic radiometric station, this site continuously collects atmospheric data and surface radiance measurements. These are then processed to ground spectral reflectance and provided with uncertainties to the RadCalNet processor which propagates values to TOA.

Due to the limitations of the instrument used for autonomous measurements, recent fieldwork has been carried out in this location to acquire additional hyperspectral data to maintain the quality of the site products. In addition, further site characterisation was conducted to prepare a best location for a new site nearby that is being developed under the HYPERNETS project. This paper presents both the RadCalNet site and the results of the recent fieldwork.