A Bi-Spectral Microbolometer Sensor for Wildfire Measurement.

This study describes the development of a prototype bi-spectral microbolometer sensor system designed explicitly for radiometric measurement and characterization of wildfire mid- and long-wave infrared radiances. The system is tested experimentally over moderate-scale experimental burns coincident with FLIR reference imagery. Statistical comparison of the fire radiative power (FRP; W) retrievals suggest that this novel system is highly reliable for use in collecting radiometric measurements of biomass burning. As such, this study provides clear experimental evidence that mid-wave infrared microbolometers are capable of collecting FRP measurements. Furthermore, given the low resource nature of this detector type, it presents a suitable option for monitoring wildfire behaviour from low resource platforms such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or nanosats.

The ACE-MAESTRO instrument on SCISAT: description, performance, and preliminary results.

The Measurement of Aerosol Extinction in the Stratosphere and Troposphere Retrieved by Occultation (MAESTRO) instrument on the SCISAT satellite is a simple, compact spectrophotometer for the measurement of atmospheric extinction, ozone, nitrogen dioxide, and other trace gases in the stratosphere and upper troposphere as part of the Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment (ACE) mission. We provide an overview of the instrument from requirements to realization, including optical design, prelaunch and on-orbit performance, and a preliminary examination of retrievals of ozone and NO(2).

Simultaneous measurements of visible (400-700 nm) and infrared (3.4 microm) NO(2) absorption.

Laboratory measurements of NO(2) absorption were obtained in the visible (400-700 nm) and mid-infrared (3.4 mum) regions simultaneously using SCISAT-1's ACE-FTS (atmospheric chemistry experiment-Fourier transform spectrometer) and MAESTRO (measurement of aerosol extinction in the stratosphere and troposphere retrieved by occultation) spectrometers. An intercomparison of these measurements was used to verify the consistency between the HITRAN 2004 3.4-mum band strengths and the strengths of three different visible cross section data sets. These measurements should be of interest to the remote-sensing community, since NO(2) measurements obtained by infrared-range instruments are often compared to those obtained by visible-range instruments without accurate knowledge of the consistency between the visible and infrared absorption coefficients. Two significant results were obtained in this study: (1) A 0.5% agreement was found between the HITRAN 2004 line strengths and the Vandaele et al. (Vandaele, A. C.; Hermans, C.; Fally, S.; Carleer, M.; Colin, R.; Mérienne, M.-F.; Jenouvrier, A.; Coquart, B. J. Geophys. Res. 2002, 107 (D18), 4348) temperature-corrected cross sections, and (2) the mean pressure-broadened half-width of NO(2) by NO in the 3.4-mum band was measured as being 0.096 +/- 0.001 cm(-1) atm(-1). The latter finding is thought to be unreported by the literature.

Intercomparison of simultaneously obtained infrared (4.8 microm) and visible (515-715 nm) ozone spectra using ACE-FTS and MAESTRO.

Laboratory ozone absorption spectra were measured simultaneously in the visible (515-715 nm) and infrared (2070-2140 cm(-1)) spectral regions using SCISAT-1's MAESTRO (Measurement of Aerosol Extinction in the Stratosphere and Troposphere Retrieved by Occultation) and ACE-FTS (Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment-Fourier Transform Spectrometer) spectrometers. An intercomparison of these measurements was used to assess the relative accuracy of HITRAN absolute line strengths, for which there was a 4% change between the 2000 and 2004 versions. Results reported here show that Chappuis band cross section strengths are more consistent with the HITRAN 2004 4.8 microm band line strengths than with the 2000 compilation.