Exploitation of OPIR Data for Environmental Intelligence Products

Overhead persistent infrared (OPIR) sensors collect data to monitor threats and detect and track targets. Their global, persistent coverage allows OPIR platforms to also retrieve environmental data. The OPIR sensors have the capacity to provide additional relevant and timely coverage, in particular for global regions of importance to DOD surveillance. In Phase I, Spectral Sciences, Inc. (SSI), in collaboration with the Univ. of Wisconsin Space Science and Engineering Center (SSEC), successfully illustrated the effectiveness of using MWIR bands to predict cloud top height, and a combination of SWIR and MWIR bands for cloud phase for MODIS data. In Phase II, the MODIS algorithms will be extended and globally validated by direct comparison to the MODIS operational LWIR algorithm predictions. The Environmental Intelligence Retrieval (EIR) Toolkit will be developed and used to construct and validate OPIR sensor algorithms. Three important cloud parameters, cloud mask, cloud top height, and cloud phase, will be obtained. A key innovation is the design of the EIR as a multi-sensor algorithm developer and cross-validation tool that applies novel data processing methods to OPIRs spectral bands.