Bio-optical Modeling and Remote Sensing of Inland Waters || Atmospheric Correction for Inland Waters

摘要： Light received by a passive Earth-observing remote sensor goes through the Earth’s atmosphere twice—from the Sun to the Earth’s surface and from the surface to the sensor—before it reaches the sensor. As such, the light received at the sensor is invariably affected by absorption and scattering by gaseous molecules and particulate matter in the atmosphere. The process of correcting for the atmospheric effects and retrieving the reflectance of a target on the Earth’s surface is called atmospheric correction. The atmospheric effect on the radiance received by a remote sensor is significantly large over water bodies because water is highly absorptive and contributes to only 20% or less of the total at-sensor radiance (e.g., Hovis and Leung, 1977). Correcting for these atmospheric effects is an essential prerequisite to retrieving accurate estimates of water-leaving radiance, which is the basis for deriving quantitative estimates of biophysical parameters from remotely sensed data.