scholarly journals Adjusting ISCCP cloud detection to increase consistency of cloud amount and reduce artifacts

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth R. Knapp ◽  
Alisa H. Young ◽  
Hilawe Semunegus ◽  
Anand K. Inamdar ◽  
William Hankins
Keyword(s):  
Time Series ◽  
Spatial Data ◽  
Cloud Amount ◽  
Detection Algorithm ◽  
Cloud Detection ◽  
Secular Changes ◽  
View Zenith Angle ◽  
Simple Change ◽  
Radiative Characteristics

AbstractThe International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) began collecting data in the 1980s to help understand the distribution of clouds. Since then, it has provided important information on clouds in time and space and their radiative characteristics. However, it was apparent from some long term time series of the data that there are some latent artifacts related to the changing satellite coverage over the more than thirty years of the record. Changes in satellite coverage effectively create secular changes in the time series of view zenith angle (VZA) for a given location. There is an inconsistency in the current ISCCP cloud detection algorithm related to VZA: two satellites viewing the same location from different VZAs can produce vastly different estimates of cloud amount. Research is presented which shows that a simple change to the cloud detection algorithm can vastly increase the consistency. This is accomplished by making the cloud/no cloud threshold VZA dependent. The resulting cloud amounts are more consistent between different satellites and the distributions are shown to be more spatially homogenous. Likewise, the more consistent spatial data leads to more consistent temporal statistics.

scholarly journals Evaluation of PROBA-V Collection 1: Refined Radiometry, Geometry, and Cloud Screening

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 1375 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolien Toté ◽  
Else Swinnen ◽  
Sindy Sterckx ◽  
Stefan Adriaensen ◽  
Iskander Benhadj ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Time Series ◽  
Vegetation Index ◽  
Near Infrared ◽  
Normalized Difference Vegetation Index ◽  
Temporal Stability ◽  
Detection Algorithm ◽  
Short Wave ◽  
Absolute Calibration ◽  
Cloud Detection ◽  
Detection Scheme

PROBA-V (PRoject for On-Board Autonomy–Vegetation) was launched in May-2013 as an operational continuation to the vegetation (VGT) instruments on-board the Système Pour l’Observation de la Terre (SPOT)-4 and -5 satellites. The first reprocessing campaign of the PROBA-V archive from Collection 0 (C0) to Collection 1 (C1) aims at harmonizing the time series, thanks to improved radiometric and geometric calibration and cloud detection. The evaluation of PROBA-V C1 focuses on (i) qualitative and quantitative assessment of the new cloud detection scheme; (ii) quantification of the effect of the reprocessing by comparing C1 to C0; and (iii) evaluation of the spatio-temporal stability of the combined SPOT/VGT and PROBA-V archive through comparison to METOP/advanced very high resolution radiometer (AVHRR). The PROBA-V C1 cloud detection algorithm yields an overall accuracy of 89.0%. Clouds are detected with very few omission errors, but there is an overdetection of clouds over bright surfaces. Stepwise updates to the visible and near infrared (VNIR) absolute calibration in C0 and the application of degradation models to the SWIR calibration in C1 result in sudden changes between C0 and C1 Blue, Red, and NIR TOC reflectance in the first year, and more gradual differences for short-wave infrared (SWIR). Other changes result in some bias between C0 and C1, although the root mean squared difference (RMSD) remains well below 1% for top-of-canopy (TOC) reflectance and below 0.02 for the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). Comparison to METOP/AVHRR shows that the recent reprocessing campaigns on SPOT/VGT and PROBA-V have resulted in a more stable combined time series.

scholarly journals Cloud fraction determined by thermal infrared and visible all-sky cameras

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Aebi ◽  
Julian Gröbner ◽  
Niklaus Kämpfer
Keyword(s):  
Cloud Amount ◽  
Visible Spectrum ◽  
Thermal Infrared ◽  
Detection Algorithm ◽  
Cloud Fraction ◽  
High Temporal Resolution ◽  
Cloud Detection ◽  
Fractional Cloud ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
High Level

Abstract. The thermal infrared cloud camera (IRCCAM) is a prototype instrument that determines cloud fraction continuously during day and nighttime with high temporal resolution. It has been developed and tested at Physikalisch-Meteorologisches Observatorium Davos/World Radiation Center (PMOD/WRC) in Davos, Switzerland. The IRCCAM consists of a commercial microbolometer camera sensitive in the 8 μm–14 μm wavelength range. Over a time period of two years, the fractional cloud coverage obtained by the IRCCAM is compared with two other commercial cameras sensitive in the visible spectrum (Mobotix Q24M and Schreder VIS-J1006) as well as with the automated partial cloud amount detection algorithm (APCADA) using pyrgeometer data. In comparison to the visible cloud detection algorithms, the IRCCAM shows median difference values of 0.01 to 0.07 cloud fraction wherein around 90 % of the data are within ±0.25 (±2 oktas) cloud fraction. Thus there is no significant difference in the cloud fraction determination of the IRCCAM in comparison to the other study instruments. Analysis indicates no significant difference in the performance of the IRCCAM during day or nighttime and also not in different seasons. The cloud types where all algorithms are in closest agreement are low-level clouds (with median differences in cloud fraction of −0.01 to 0.02), followed by mid-level (0.00) and high-level clouds (−0.13).

scholarly journals Aerosol optical depth retrievals at the Izaña Atmospheric Observatory from 1941 to 2013 by using artificial neural networks

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. D. García ◽  
O. E. García ◽  
E. Cuevas ◽  
V. E. Cachorro ◽  
A. Barreto ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Neural Networks ◽  
Time Series ◽  
Artificial Neural Networks ◽  
Aerosol Optical Depth ◽  
Optical Depth ◽  
Mineral Dust ◽  
Dust Particles ◽  
Filter Radiometer ◽  
Artificial Neural

Abstract. This paper presents the reconstruction of a 73-year time series of the aerosol optical depth (AOD) at 500 nm at the subtropical high-mountain Izaña Atmospheric Observatory (IZO) located in Tenerife (Canary Islands, Spain). For this purpose, we have combined AOD estimates from artificial neural networks (ANNs) from 1941 to 2001 and AOD measurements directly obtained with a Precision Filter Radiometer (PFR) between 2003 and 2013. The analysis is limited to summer months (July–August–September), when the largest aerosol load is observed at IZO (Saharan mineral dust particles). The ANN AOD time series has been comprehensively validated against coincident AOD measurements performed with a solar spectrometer Mark-I (1984–2009) and AERONET (AErosol RObotic NETwork) CIMEL photometers (2004–2009) at IZO, obtaining a rather good agreement on a daily basis: Pearson coefficient, R, of 0.97 between AERONET and ANN AOD, and 0.93 between Mark-I and ANN AOD estimates. In addition, we have analysed the long-term consistency between ANN AOD time series and long-term meteorological records identifying Saharan mineral dust events at IZO (synoptical observations and local wind records). Both analyses provide consistent results, with correlations  >  85 %. Therefore, we can conclude that the reconstructed AOD time series captures well the AOD variations and dust-laden Saharan air mass outbreaks on short-term and long-term timescales and, thus, it is suitable to be used in climate analysis.

scholarly journals Cropland Abandonment in Slovakia: Analysis and Comparison of Different Data Sources

Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 334
Author(s):  
Juraj Lieskovský ◽  
Dana Lieskovská
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Land Cover ◽  
Spatial Data ◽  
Data Sources ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
Corine Land Cover ◽  
Cropland Area ◽  
Cropland Abandonment ◽  
Multi Temporal

This study compares different nationwide multi-temporal spatial data sources and analyzes the cropland area, cropland abandonment rates and transformation of cropland to other land cover/land use categories in Slovakia. Four multi-temporal land cover/land use data sources were used: The Historic Land Dynamics Assessment (HILDA), the Carpathian Historical Land Use Dataset (CHLUD), CORINE Land Cover (CLC) data and Landsat images classification. We hypothesized that because of the different spatial, temporal and thematic resolution of the datasets, there would be differences in the resulting cropland abandonment rates. We validated the datasets, compared the differences, interpreted the results and combined the information from the different datasets to form an overall picture of long-term cropland abandonment in Slovakia. The cropland area increased until the Second World War, but then decreased after transition to the communist regime and sharply declined following the 1989 transition to an open market economy. A total of 49% of cropland area has been transformed to grassland, 34% to forest and 15% to urban areas. The Historical Carpathian dataset is the more reliable long-term dataset, and it records 19.65 km2/year average cropland abandonment for 1836–1937, 154.44 km2/year for 1938–1955 and 140.21 km2/year for 1956–2012. In comparison, the Landsat, as a recent data source, records 142.02 km2/year abandonment for 1985–2000 and 89.42 km2/year for 2000–2010. These rates, however, would be higher if the dataset contained urbanisation data and more precise information on afforestation. The CORINE Land Cover reflects changes larger than 5 ha, and therefore the reported cropland abandonment rates are lower.

scholarly journals Long-Term Data Traffic Forecasting for Network Dimensioning in LTE with Short Time Series

Electronics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 1151
Author(s):  
Carolina Gijón ◽  
Matías Toril ◽  
Salvador Luna-Ramírez ◽  
María Luisa Marí-Altozano ◽  
José María Ruiz-Avilés
Keyword(s):  
Time Series ◽  
Deep Learning ◽  
Time Series Analysis ◽  
Data Traffic ◽  
Medium Term ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Traffic Forecasting ◽  
Series Analysis ◽  
Radio Planning

Network dimensioning is a critical task in current mobile networks, as any failure in this process leads to degraded user experience or unnecessary upgrades of network resources. For this purpose, radio planning tools often predict monthly busy-hour data traffic to detect capacity bottlenecks in advance. Supervised Learning (SL) arises as a promising solution to improve predictions obtained with legacy approaches. Previous works have shown that deep learning outperforms classical time series analysis when predicting data traffic in cellular networks in the short term (seconds/minutes) and medium term (hours/days) from long historical data series. However, long-term forecasting (several months horizon) performed in radio planning tools relies on short and noisy time series, thus requiring a separate analysis. In this work, we present the first study comparing SL and time series analysis approaches to predict monthly busy-hour data traffic on a cell basis in a live LTE network. To this end, an extensive dataset is collected, comprising data traffic per cell for a whole country during 30 months. The considered methods include Random Forest, different Neural Networks, Support Vector Regression, Seasonal Auto Regressive Integrated Moving Average and Additive Holt–Winters. Results show that SL models outperform time series approaches, while reducing data storage capacity requirements. More importantly, unlike in short-term and medium-term traffic forecasting, non-deep SL approaches are competitive with deep learning while being more computationally efficient.

scholarly journals Assessing Stream-Aquifer Connectivity in a Coastal California Watershed

Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 416
Author(s):  
Bwalya Malama ◽  
Devin Pritchard-Peterson ◽  
John J. Jasbinsek ◽  
Christopher Surfleet
Keyword(s):  
Time Series ◽  
Spectral Analysis ◽  
Water Level ◽  
Time Series Data ◽  
Series Data ◽  
Low Permeability ◽  
Pumping Tests ◽  
Stream Flows ◽  
The Impact

We report the results of field and laboratory investigations of stream-aquifer interactions in a watershed along the California coast to assess the impact of groundwater pumping for irrigation on stream flows. The methods used include subsurface sediment sampling using direct-push drilling, laboratory permeability and particle size analyses of sediment, piezometer installation and instrumentation, stream discharge and stage monitoring, pumping tests for aquifer characterization, resistivity surveys, and long-term passive monitoring of stream stage and groundwater levels. Spectral analysis of long-term water level data was used to assess correlation between stream and groundwater level time series data. The investigations revealed the presence of a thin low permeability silt-clay aquitard unit between the main aquifer and the stream. This suggested a three layer conceptual model of the subsurface comprising unconfined and confined aquifers separated by an aquitard layer. This was broadly confirmed by resistivity surveys and pumping tests, the latter of which indicated the occurrence of leakage across the aquitard. The aquitard was determined to be 2–3 orders of magnitude less permeable than the aquifer, which is indicative of weak stream-aquifer connectivity and was confirmed by spectral analysis of stream-aquifer water level time series. The results illustrate the importance of site-specific investigations and suggest that even in systems where the stream is not in direct hydraulic contact with the producing aquifer, long-term stream depletion can occur due to leakage across low permeability units. This has implications for management of stream flows, groundwater abstraction, and water resources management during prolonged periods of drought.

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