Radiobrightness decision criteria for freeze/thaw boundaries

Author

Zuerndorfer, B. ; England, A.W.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng. & Comput. Sci., Michigan Univ., Ann Arbor, MI, USA

Volume

30

Issue

1

fYear

1992

fDate

1/1/1992 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

89

Lastpage

102

Abstract

A freeze indicator (FI), based on a low 37-GHz radiobrightness and a low 10.7, 18, and 37-GHz radiobrightness spectral gradient, has been used to classify frozen surfaces in the northern Great Plains. By modeling the radiometer beampatterns as Gaussian, freeze/thaw boundaries can be located at the (fine) resolution of the 37-GHz channel. The performance of the freeze indicator, and subsequent boundary location estimate, depends on the accuracy of the boundary decision criteria. It is shown that decision criteria based on clustering and unsupervised classification yield good performance. A simple algorithm for registering coarse-resolution FI boundaries to equivalent boundaries in fine-resolution 37-GHz radiobrightness images is also presented

Keywords

brightness; remote sensing; soil; temperature distribution; 10.7 GHz; 18 GHz; 37 GHz; EHF; North Dakota; SHF; USA; algorithm; clustering; freeze indicator; freeze/thaw boundaries; frozen surfaces; northern Great Plains; radiobrightness; soil; spectral gradient; unsupervised classification; Clustering algorithms; Energy exchange; Frequency estimation; Microwave radiometry; Petroleum; Soil moisture; Spatial resolution; Surface fitting; Temperature; Testing;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Geoscience and Remote Sensing, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0196-2892

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/36.124219

Filename

124219