Illuminating the Capabilities of the Suomi National Polar-Orbiting Partnership (NPP) Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Day/Night Band

Abstract

Daytime measurements of reflected sunlight in the visible spectrum have been a staple of Earth-viewing radiometers since the advent of the environmental satellite platform. At night, these same optical-spectrum sensors have traditionally been limited to thermal infrared emission, which contains relatively poor information content for many OPEN ACCESSRemote Sens. 2013, 5 6718 important weather and climate parameters. These deficiencies have limited our ability to characterize the full diurnal behavior and processes of parameters relevant to improved monitoring, understanding and modeling of weather and climate processes. Visible-spectrum light information does exist during the nighttime hours, originating from a wide variety of sources, but its detection requires specialized technology. Such measurements have existed, in a limited way, on USA Department of Defense satellites, but the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) satellite, which carries a new Day/Night Band (DNB) radiometer, offers the first quantitative measurements of nocturnal visible and near-infrared light. Here, we demonstrate the expanded potential for nocturnal low-light visible applications enabled by the DNB. Via a combination of terrestrial and extraterrestrial light sources, such observations are always available-expanding many current existing applications while enabling entirely new capabilities. These novel low-light measurements open doors to a wealth of new interdisciplinary research topics while lighting a pathway toward the optimized design of follow-on satellite based low light visible sensors.

VIIRS night-time lights

“…The follow on to DMSP for global low-light imaging of the Earth at night is the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Day/Night Band (DNB), flown jointly by NASA and NOAA. The VIIRS DNB provides several key improvements over DMSP-OLS data, including a vast reduction in the pixel footprint (ground instantaneous field of view [GIFOV]), uniform GIFOV from nadir to edge of scan, lower detection limits, wider dynamic range, finer quantization, and in-flight calibration (Miller et al 2012;Elvidge et al 2013;Miller et al 2013).…”

Estimation of the PM2.5 Pollution Levels in Beijing Based on Nighttime Light Data from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program-Operational Linescan System

“…Future studies should focus on the quantitative relationship between PM pollution and DMSP-OLS data throughout the lunar cycle. New sources of high spatial resolution nighttime images, such as the NPP-VIIRS Nighttime Light Data [58][59][60], the EROS-B commercial satellite data [61] and aerial photography [62], may allow for better estimation methods and results.…”

Global Trends in Exposure to Light Pollution in Natural Terrestrial Ecosystems

“…For these reasons, although the region as a whole has likely seen an increase in brightness, we consider that this increase has likely been concentrated within a minority of pixels, and hence robust regression techniques will be relatively insensitive to this increase. It is, however, impossible to test this assumption with data available for the time period of this study-although in future years VIIRS data [19] could be utilised to assess the stability and spatial pattern of similar areas over time. An assessment of the robustness of the calibration method to increases in light intensity is given below in Section 3.4.…”

“…While higher resolution, calibrated data are available from the day-night band of the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiation Suite (VIIRS) onboard the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) satellite since 2012 [19], DMSP/OLS nighttime lights data remain highly valuable as a source for detecting longer term trends in the distribution of artificial light at night. Quantifying changes is complicated by the lack of calibration between sensors and constant (but unknown) adjustment of the gain control of the optical instrument to provide consistent imagery of cloud.…”