Integrated Modeling of Active and Passive Microwaves and Passive Optical Signatures

Abstract

A method of physical integration of scatteringmodels is presented here to estimate the backscattering coefficient(BSC) for L-band, brightness temperature (TB) for L- and C-Bandand the reflectance for visible (VIS) and near-infrared (NIR)region for dynamic vegetated terrain. The SPIN (SpectrumInvariant Interaction) model is obtained by solving vectorradiative transfer (VRT) equations kernel-based and therefore fordifferent wave interaction mechanisms. To demonstrate itsapplication for the microwave region, the measurements duringthe growing cycle of corn from the Eleventh Microwave, Water,and Energy Balance Experiment (MicroWEX-11) have been used.For the optical part the results are compared with the PROSAILmodel. By applying the SPIN model in the radar regime, it couldbe shown that the modeled backscattering coefficients (BSC)correlate strongly with the vertical polarization measurements(Pearson 0.83, R20.69) and are less correlated with the horizontalmeasurements (Pearson 0.45, R20.20). In addition, the modeledbrightness temperatures (L- and C-band) in both polarizationstates are also highly correlated with the MicroWEX-11measurements (L-band: Pearson 0.755, R2 0.57; C-band: Pearson0.73, R2 0.53). Finally, the optical results are consistent with theresults of other optical models (Pearson 0.99, R2 0.98).