Radiometric Cross Calibration of Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) and Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM plus )

This study evaluates the radiometric consistency between Landsat-8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) and Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) using cross calibration techniques. Two approaches are used, one based on cross calibration between the two sensors using simultaneous image pairs, acquired during an underfly event on 29-30 March 2013. The other approach is based on using time series of image statistics acquired by these two sensors over the Libya 4 pseudo invariant calibration site (PICS) (+28.55 degrees N, + 23.39 degrees E). Analyses from these approaches show that the reflectance calibration of OLI is generally within +/- 3% of the ETM+ radiance calibration for all the reflective bands from visible to short wave infrared regions when the ChKur solar spectrum is used to convert the ETM+ radiance to reflectance. Similar results are obtained comparing the OLI radiance calibration directly with the ETM+ radiance calibration and the results in these two different physical units (radiance and reflectance) agree to within +/- 2% for all the analogous bands. These results will also be useful to tie all the Landsat heritage sensors from Landsat 1 MultiSpectral Scanner (MSS) through Landsat-8 OLI to a consistent radiometric scale.