Campaign Summary
| Campaign name | Eco3D |
| Campaign Location | Wallops, VA, Bangor, Maine, Homestead, Florida |
| Inclusive Dates | August 18- September 19, 2011 |
| Mission Manager | Mike Cropper, Martin Nowicki & Rich McKee |
| CAR/CANS Principal Investigator/ Co-I | Drs. Charles K. Gatebe/ Miguel Román |
| DBSAR Principal Investigators | Drs. Rafael F. Rincon, Lola Fatoyinbo & Jon Ranson |
| SIMPL Principal Investigator | Dr. David Harding |
| Chief Pilot | Michael Singer |
| Instruments | CAR/CANS, DBSAR, PDS, SIMPL |
| Status | completed |
| Photo Album | Flickr Photo Album |
CAR Data Summary
CAR Mission (Flight) Pages
(Click on flight number or map to load mission page)
Flight # 2024 2011-08-19 |
Flight # 2025 2011-08-22 |
Flight # 2026 2011-08-23 |
Flight # 2027 2011-08-25 |
Flight # 2028 2011-08-26 |
Flight # 2029 2011-08-30 |
Flight # 2030 2011-08-31 |
Flight # 2031 2011-09-01 |
Flight # 2032 2011-09-12 |
Flight # 2033 2011-09-13 |
Flight # 2034 2011-09-14 |
Flight # 2035 2011-09-16 |
Flight # 2036 2011-09-19 |
The Eco3D flight campaign objectives include:
* acquire coordinated active (lidar and radar) and passive (radiometer) data over forest ecosystems
* measure the 3-dimensional structure (in terms of tree height and density) of North American forests
* measure above ground biomass and carbon storage in forest ecosystems ranging from boreal forests to tropical wetlands.
Three instruments developed at GSFC (CAR: Cloud Absorption Radiometer, DBSAR: Digital Beam-forming Synthetic Aperture Radar, and SIMPL: Swath Imaging Multi-polarization Photon-counting Lidar) will fly simultaneously on the P-3 aircraft out of the Wallops flight facility. CAR measures surface BRDF at 14 narrow spectral bands located in the atmospheric window regions of the ultraviolet, visible and near-infrared parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. It has a wide aperture of 190°, an instantaneous Field of View of 1°, and can capture the full BRDF, including the hotspot, even under low sun angle conditions. DBSAR, a new generation airborne L- Band radar system, provides two- and three-dimensional fine-scale measurements of biomass. SAMPL, utilizes a short-pulse, high-rate, micropulse laser transmitter, photon-counting detectors, and high-speed, event timer electronics in a multi-beam configuration. It measures surface topography and vegetation vertical structure as well polarimetric scattering properties at 1064 nm and 532 nm.
The campaign duration is 3 weeks in August-September, 2011 and will cover areas as far north as Quebec, Canada and as far south as the Florida Everglades, USA. This will help to assess new methods for forest biophysical parameter estimation including above-ground biomass. All forested sites selected have recent ground measurements. However, ground measurements of structural parameters will be made contemporaneously with airborne data acquisition to allow validation of derived information.Boulder fields and beach areas provide Solid Earth and planetary analog sites, to evaluate retrieval of roughness characteristics at multiple length scales.
This study promotes the understanding of vegetation response to changing forcing factors such as climate, storm frequency, and management practices, and is directly traceable to missions such as MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer), MISR (Multi-angle Imaging Spectroradiometer), VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite) and ICESat-2 (Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite-2).
