Improving the Calibration of Suomi NPP VIIRS Thermal Emissive Bands During Blackbody Warm-Up/Cool-Down IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing

The Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership Program Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) thermal emissive bands (TEB) have been performing well during nominal operations since launch. However, small but persistent calibration anomalies are observed in all TEBs during the quarterly blackbody (BB) warm-up/cool-down (WUCD) events. As a result, the time series of daytime sea surface temperature (SST) (derived from bands M15–M16) show warm spikes on the order of 0.25 K. This paper suggests that VIIRS TEB WUCD biases are band dependent, with daily-averaged biases about −0.04 and 0.05 K for I4 and I5, and −0.05, −0.05, 0.11, 0.09, and 0.05 K for M12–M16, respectively. Two correction methods—Ltrace and WUCD-C—have been implemented and evaluated using colocated observations from the Cross-track Infrared Sounder (CrIS), radiative transfer simulations, and SST retrievals. Also an error in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration operational processing was identified and fixed. Both correction methods effectively minimize WUCD-induced SST anomalies. The Ltrace method works well for I5, M12, and M14–M16, with residual biases about 0.01 K. The WUCD-C method, on the other hand, performs well to correct WUCD biases in all TEBs, with residual biases also about 0.01 K. However, it introduces warm biases relative to CrIS at cold scene temperatures, which requires further study. Applying nonequal BB thermistor weights improves calibration at BB temperature set points, but its impact on daily-averaged WUCD biases is small. The proposed methodologies may also be applied to the VIIRS onboard the follow-on Joint Polar Satellite System satellites.