APPLYING ALOS PRISM DATA TO RETRIEVE THE ATMPSPHERIC TRANSMITTANCE

In this study, a new technique for atmospheric transmittance estimated from ALOS PRISM data is developed. It is based on satellite's observing radiances of different view angles and assumes that the cause of difference in radiances is the different view angles. The ALOS PRISM has three independent optical systems for viewing forward and backward and producing a stereoscopic image along the satellite's track. This stereo pair data can be used to estimate the transmittance according to the radiative transfer theory. This derived transmittance will be validated by the AERONET data and compared with the MODTRAN4 simulation results. Results show that the higher the land cover albedo, the better the derived transmittance compared to the AERONET data. Besides, this technique also shows the transmittance retrieval will be underestimated for the low land cover albedo.