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Example of MISR Level 2AS data product
Appalachian Mountains, North America
The MISR team has developed new methods for retrieving information
about clouds, airborne particles, and surface properties that
capitalize on the instrument's unique, multi-angle imaging approach.
This illustration, based upon results contained in products publicly
available at the Atmospheric Sciences Data Center (ASDC), highlights
some of these capabilities. The ASDC, located at NASA's Langley
Research Center, is the primary processing and archive center
for MISR data (http://eosweb.larc.nasa.gov).
These data were acquired by MISR on March 6, 2000, and extend
from Lake Ontario to northern Georgia in the eastern United States.
The panel at left is the downward-looking (nadir) view. The center-left
panel was acquired by the forward-viewing 70.5-degree camera.
At this increased slant angle, the line-of-sight through the atmosphere
is three times longer, and a thin haze over the Appalachians is
more apparent. MISR uses this enhanced sensitivity along with
the variation of brightness with angle to monitor particulate
pollution and to measure haze properties. The third panel is a
map of the airborne particle (aerosol) amount, and describes a
quantity derived using methods that take advantage of MISR's moderately
high spatial resolution at very oblique angles. The aerosol results
are obtained at coarser resolution than the underlying images;
gradations from blue to red indicate increasing aerosol abundance.
These data indicate how airborne particles are interacting with
sunlight, a measure of their impact on Earth's climate. The fourth
panel shows the Earth's surface, similar to panel 1, except that
the measured effects of aerosols in the atmosphere have been removed.
These data products were generated from a portion of the imagery
acquired during Terra orbit 1155. The panels cover an area of
about 380 kilometers x 1520 kilometers, and utilize data from
blocks 54 to 65 within World Reference System-2 path 17.
Image Credit: NASA/GSFC/JPL, MISR Team. Catalog No. PIA02629
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