PARABOLA Surface Reflectance Measurements from FIFE Campaigns

1987-1989 data from five FIFE Intensive Field Campaigns characterize vegetation reflectance variation. Measurements from the Portable Apparatus for Rapid Acquisitions of Bi-directional Observations of Land and Atmosphere (PARABOLA) instrument were taken at five locations on the Konza Prairie. The dataset provides averaged reflectance factors at three spectral bands across different solar and sensor viewing angles throughout the day.

Use Cases

• Modeling bi-directional reflectance distribution functions (BRDF) for prairie vegetation using view angle and spectral band data.
• Calibrating airborne or satellite sensor reflectance measurements with ground-truth data from known locations.
• Studying the relationship between solar geometry, canopy characteristics, and spectral reflectance.
• Analyzing diurnal patterns in surface reflectance across three specific wavelength bands.

Strengths

• Provides multi-angular reflectance data crucial for BRDF studies, captured at different view angles.
• Covers a multi-year time series across five distinct intensive field campaigns from 1987 to 1989.
• Measurements are spatially replicated from five different locations within the FIFE study area.

Limitations

• Specific row count, file size, and exact column names are unavailable across all sources.
• Conflicting 'last updated' metadata: one source lists 1989-08-08, another lists 2026-03-12, suggesting a data freeze versus a metadata update conflict.

Provenance

Source

ORNL_CLOUD

Collection Method

Field measurements collected by the PARABOLA instrument during the FIFE campaigns.

Time Range

1987-1989

Freshness

2026-03-12 22:51:45.112969

Geography

Konza Prairie, within the FIFE study area, Kansas, USA.