CLPX-Airborne: Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (AIRSAR) Imagery

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Entry ID

NSIDC-0153

Summary

Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (AIRSAR) is a side-looking imaging radar that is able to collect data irrespective of daylight or cloud cover. The AIRSAR instrument was operated in two modes over each Cold Land Processes Field Experiment (CLPX) Meso-cell Study Area (MSA). In the first mode (POLSAR), polarimetric radar data were collected at P-, L-, and C-bands. In the second mode (TOPSAR), cross-track interferometry data were collected at C-band and L-band. The CLPX AIRSAR mission flew on a DC-8 aircraft at 8 km altitude over the three MSAs at Rabbit Ears, North Park, and Fraser. 171 flight lines (87 TOPSAR and 84 POLSAR) were flown in February, March, and September of 2002 and in March 2003.

The NASA CLPX is a multi-sensor, multi-scale experiment that focuses on extending a local-scale understanding of water fluxes, storage, and transformations to regional and global scales. Within a framework of nested study areas in the central Rocky Mountains of the western United States, ranging from 1-ha to 160,000 km2, intensive ground, airborne, and spaceborne observations are collected. Data collection focuses on two seasons: mid-winter, when conditions are generally frozen and dry, and early spring, a transitional period when both frozen and thawed, dry and wet conditions are widespread.

Data Set Citation

Dataset Creator: Bruce Chapman and Jiancheng Shi
Dataset Title: CLPX-Airborne: Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (AIRSAR) Imagery
Dataset Release Date: 2004-11-29
Dataset Release Place: Boulder, CO
Dataset Publisher: National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC)
Online Resource: http://nsidc.org/data/nsidc-0153.html

Temporal Coverage

Start Date: 2002-02-19
Stop Date: 2002-02-24

Start Date: 2002-03-25
Stop Date: 2002-03-25

Start Date: 2002-09-17
Stop Date: 2002-09-17

Start Date: 2003-03-25
Stop Date: 2003-03-30

Location Keywords

• Continent North America Colorado, Wyoming
• Geographic Region Northern Hemisphere

Science Keywords

• Spectral/Engineering Radar Radar Imagery

Ancillary Keywords

• AIRSAR
• CLPX
• DAAC
• EOSDIS
• interferometry
• NASA
• NSIDC DAAC
• NSIDC-0153
• POLSAR
• Synthetic Aperture Radar Imagery
• TOPSAR

ISO Topic Category (View Definitions)

• Climatology/Meteorology/Atmosphere

Platform

• AIRCRAFT

Instrument

• AIRSAR Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar
• SAR Synthetic Aperture Radar

Project

• CLPX Cold Land Processes Field Experiment

Data Set Progress

COMPLETE

Data Center

National Snow and Ice Data Center
Data Center URL: http://nsidc.org
Data Set ID: NSIDC-0153

Data Center Personnel

Name: NSIDC User Services
Phone: +1 (303) 492-6199
Fax: +1 (303) 492-2468
Email: nsidc@nsidc.org
Contact Address:
National Snow and Ice Data Center
CIRES, 449 UCB
University of Colorado
City: Boulder
Province or State: CO
Postal Code: 80309-0449
Country: USA

NSIDC Distributed Active Archive Center
Data Center URL: http://nsidc.org/daac/index.html
Data Set ID: NSIDC-0153

Data Center Personnel

Name: NSIDC DAAC User Services
Phone: +1 (303) 492-6199
Fax: +1 (303) 492-2468
Email: nsidc@nsidc.org
Contact Address:
National Snow and Ice Data Center
CIRES, 449 UCB
University of Colorado
City: Boulder
Province or State: CO
Postal Code: 80309-0449
Country: USA

Distribution

Distribution Media: CD
Distribution Size: POLSAR 300 MB, TOPSAR 1 GB per flight line; 92.61 GB total
Distribution Format: Binary (compressed Stokes matrix, map byte, or signed 16-bit integer2 format)

Personnel

BILL CHAPMAN
Role: INVESTIGATOR
Email: chapman@faldo.atmos.uiuc.edu
Contact Address:
Department of Atmospheric Sciences
University of Illinois
105 S. Gregory Avenue
City: Urbana
Province or State: IL
Postal Code: 61801

Jiancheng Shi
Role: INVESTIGATOR
Contact Address:
ICESS, University of California
City: Santa Barbara
Province or State: CA
Postal Code: 93106
Country: USA

NSIDC USER SERVICES
Role: TECHNICAL CONTACT
Phone: +1 (303) 492-6199
Fax: +1 (303) 492-2468
Email: nsidc@nsidc.org
Contact Address:
National Snow and Ice Data Center
CIRES, 449 UCB
University of Colorado
City: Boulder
Province or State: CO
Postal Code: 80309-0449
Country: USA

Reference

Lou, Yunling, Yunjin Kim, and Jakob van Zyl. The NASA/JPL Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar System. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA.

NASA/JPL Airsar Web Site. (http://airsar.jpl.nasa.gov/)

Metadata Name and Version

Metadata Name: CEOS IDN DIF
Metadata Version: 9.7

Creation and Review Dates

DIF Creation Date: 2005-02-04
Last DIF Revision Date: 2005-03-28

DIF Text-Only

Directory Interchange Format (DIF) in plain text

DIF XML

Directory Interchange Format (DIF) in Extensible Markup Language (XML)

FGDC HTML

U.S. Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata (CSDGM)