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Publications

Below is a list of the most recent Landsat peer-reviewed scientific papers, reports, fact sheets, and other publications. You can search all our publication holdings by type, topic, year, and order. After selecting any set of these criteria, click "Apply Filter" to view the search results.

Filter Total Items: 69

Landsat-8: Status and on-orbit performance

Landsat 8 and its two Earth imaging sensors, the Operational Land Imager (OLI) and Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) have been operating on-orbit for 2 ½ years. Landsat 8 has been acquiring substantially more images than initially planned, typically around 700 scenes per day versus a 400 scenes per day requirement, acquiring nearly all land scenes. Both the TIRS and OLI instruments are exceeding thei
Authors
Brian L. Markham, Julia A. Barsi, Ron Morfitt, Michael J. Choate, Matthew Montanaro, Terry Arvidson, James R. Irons

Landsat surface reflectance data

Landsat satellite data have been produced, archived, and distributed by the U.S. Geological Survey since 1972. Users rely on these data for historical study of land surface change and require consistent radiometric data processed to the highest science standards. In support of the guidelines established through the Global Climate Observing System, the U.S. Geological Survey has embarked on product
Authors

Landsat-8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) radiometric performance on-orbit

Expectations of the Operational Land Imager (OLI) radiometric performance onboard Landsat-8 have been met or exceeded. The calibration activities that occurred prior to launch provided calibration parameters that enabled ground processing to produce imagery that met most requirements when data were transmitted to the ground. Since launch, calibration updates have improved the image quality even mo
Authors
Ron Morfitt, Julia A. Barsi, Raviv Levy, Brian L. Markham, Esad Micijevic, Lawrence Ong, Pat Scaramuzza, Kelly Vanderwerff

Validation of geometric accuracy of Global Land Survey (GLS) 2000 data

The Global Land Survey (GLS) 2000 data were generated from Geocover™ 2000 data with the aim of producing a global data set of accuracy better than 25 m Root Mean Square Error (RMSE). An assessment and validation of accuracy of GLS 2000 data set, and its co-registration with Geocover™ 2000 data set is presented here. Since the availability of global data sets that have higher nominal accuracy than
Authors
Rajagopalan Rengarajan, Aparajithan Sampath, James C. Storey, Michael J. Choate

Landsat 8 thermal infrared sensor geometric characterization and calibration

The Landsat 8 spacecraft was launched on 11 February 2013 carrying two imaging payloads: the Operational Land Imager (OLI) and the Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS). The TIRS instrument employs a refractive telescope design that is opaque to visible wavelengths making prelaunch geometric characterization challenging. TIRS geometric calibration thus relied heavily on on-orbit measurements. Since the t
Authors
James C. Storey, Michael J. Choate, Donald Moe

Landsat 8 operational land imager on-orbit geometric calibration and performance

The Landsat 8 spacecraft was launched on 11 February 2013 carrying the Operational Land Imager (OLI) payload for moderate resolution imaging in the visible, near infrared (NIR), and short-wave infrared (SWIR) spectral bands. During the 90-day commissioning period following launch, several on-orbit geometric calibration activities were performed to refine the prelaunch calibration parameters. The r
Authors
James C. Storey, Michael J. Choate, Kenton Lee

On-orbit performance of the Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager

The Landsat 8 satellite was launched on February 11, 2013, to systematically collect multispectral images for detection and quantitative analysis of changes on the Earth’s surface. The collected data are stored at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center and continue the longest archive of medium resolution Earth images. There are two imaging instrume
Authors
Esad Micijevic, Kelly Vanderwerff, Pat Scaramuzza, Ron Morfitt, Julia A. Barsi, Raviv Levy

Landsat 8

The Landsat era that began in 1972 will continue into the future, since the February 2013 launch of the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (renamed Landsat 8 on May 30, 2013). The Landsat 8 satellite provides 16-bit high-quality land-surface data, with instruments advancing future measurement capabilities while ensuring compatibility with historical Landsat data. The Operational Land Imager sensor co
Authors

Monitoring on-orbit calibration stability of the Terra MODIS and Landsat 7 ETM+ sensors using pseudo-invariant test sites

The ability to detect and quantify changes in the Earth's environment depends on sensors that can provide calibrated, consistent measurements of the Earth's surface features through time. A critical step in this process is to put image data from different sensors onto a common radiometric scale. This work focuses on monitoring the long-term on-orbit calibration stability of the Terra Moderate Reso
Authors
G. Chander, X.(J.) Xiong, T.(J.) Choi, A. Angal

Landsat continuity: Issues and opportunities for land cover monitoring

Initiated in 1972, the Landsat program has provided a continuous record of earth observation for 35 years. The assemblage of Landsat spatial, spectral, and temporal resolutions, over a reasonably sized image extent, results in imagery that can be processed to represent land cover over large areas with an amount of spatial detail that is absolutely unique and indispensable for monitoring, managemen
Authors
M.A. Wulder, Joanne C. White, S.N. Goward, J. G. Masek, J. R. Irons, M. Herold, W.B. Cohen, Thomas R. Loveland, C. E. Woodcock

SLC-off Landsat-7 ETM+ reflective band radiometric calibration

Since May 31, 2003, when the scan line corrector (SLC) on the Landsat-7 ETM+ failed, the primary foci of Landsat-7 ETM+ analyses have been on understanding and attempting to fix the problem and later on developing composited products to mitigate the problem. In the meantime, the Image Assessment System personnel and vicarious calibration teams have continued to monitor the radiometric performance
Authors
B. L. Markham, J. A. Barsi, K. J. Thome, J. L. Barker, P. L. Scaramuzza, D. L. Helder

Improvement in absolute calibration accuracy of Landsat-5 TM with Landsat-7 ETM+ data

The ability to detect and quantify changes in the Earth's environment depends on satellites sensors that can provide calibrated, consistent measurements of Earth's surface features through time. A critical step in this process is to put image data from subsequent generations of sensors onto a common radiometric scale. To evaluate Landsat-5 (L5) Thematic Mapper's (TM) utility in this role, image pa
Authors
G. Chander, B. L. Markham, E. Micijevic, P. M. Teillet, D. L. Helder