NASA Cold Land Processes Experiment (CLPX 2002/03): Airborne Remote Sensing

Abstract This paper describes the airborne data collected during the 2002 and 2003 Cold Land Processes Experiment (CLPX). These data include gamma radiation observations, multi- and hyperspectral optical imaging, optical altimetry, and passive and active microwave observations of the test areas. The gamma observations were collected with the NOAA/National Weather Service Gamma Radiation Detection System (GAMMA). The CLPX multispectral optical data consist of very high-resolution color-infrared orthoimagery of the intensive study areas (ISAs) by TerrainVision. The airborne hyperspectral optical data consist of observations from the NASA Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS). Optical altimetry measurements were collected using airborne light detection and ranging (lidar) by TerrainVision. The active microwave data include radar observations from the NASA Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (AIRSAR), the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Polarimetric Ku-band Scatterometer (POLSCAT), and airborne GPS bistatic radar data collected with the NASA GPS radar delay mapping receiver (DMR). The passive microwave data consist of observations collected with the NOAA Polarimetric Scanning Radiometer (PSR). All of the airborne datasets described here and more information describing data collection and processing are available online.