January 16, 2020 – Upcoming Landsat 8 Bias Parameter File Regeneration

By Landsat Missions

Starting Tuesday, January 21, 2020, all Landsat 8 Bias Parameter Files (BPFs) created prior to December 5, 2019 will be removed from the Landsat Bias Parameter Files search page and regenerated in preparation for Landsat Collection 2.

The BPFs are being updated to incorporate minor changes made to the Calibration Parameter Files (CPFs), which are used in the generation of BPFs. The updated BPFs will be regenerated from oldest to newest, up until December 4, 2019. This activity is expected to take approximately 2 weeks.

The updated BPFs will start becoming available the week of January 27, 2020. As updated BPFs are regenerated they will be made available through the Landsat Bias Parameter Files search page, which will prompt the delivery of a Really Simple Syndication (RSS) notification to users who have subscribed to the BPF RSS web feed. The RSS notifications for newly-generated historical BPFs can be ignored.

Please note: these changes have no impact on the Landsat 8 Collection 1 image data. However, users reviewing the Landsat 8 metadata (.MTL) file should be aware that the file names displayed for the “BPF_NAME_OLI” and “BPF_NAME_TIRS” fields will be invalid, and the updated BPF will be available to download from the Landsat Bias Parameter Files search page.

Please contact USGS Customer Services with any questions regarding this announcement.