Proceedings Article | 9 November 2012
Proc. SPIE. 8528, Earth Observing Missions and Sensors: Development, Implementation, and Characterization II
KEYWORDS: Polarization, Imaging systems, Satellites, Clouds, Infrared radiation, Radiometry, Spatial resolution, Climatology, Environmental sensing, Snow cover
The “Global Change Observation Mission-Climate” (GCOM-C) is a project of Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
(JAXA) for the global and long-term observation of the Earth environment. The GCOM-C is a part of the JAXA’s
GCOM mission which consists of two satellite series, GCOM-C and GCOM-W (Water), spanning three generations in
order to perform uniform and stable global observations for 13 years. GCOM-C carries a multi-spectral optical
radiometer named Second Generation Global Imager (SGLI), which will have special features of wide spectral coverage
from 380nm to 12μm, a high spatial resolution of 250m, a field of view exceeding 1000km, two-direction simultaneous
observation, and polarization observation. The GCOM-C mission aims to improve our knowledge on the global carbon
cycle and radiation budget through high-accuracy observation of global vegetation, ocean color, temperature, cloud,
aerosol, and snow and ice. As for the cryosphere products, not only snow and ice cover extent but also snow physical
parameters are retrieved from SGLI data such as snow grain sizes at several surface levels (shallow layer, sub-surface
layer, and the top surface), temperature, and mass fraction of impurity mixed in snow layer and so on. These snow
physical parameters are important factors that determine spectral albedo and radiation budget at the snow surface. Thus it
is essential to monitor those parameters from space in order to better understand snow metamorphosis and melting
process and also to study the response of snow and sea-ice cover extent in the Polar Regions to a climate forcing such as
global warming. This paper will summarize the SGLI cryospheric products and validation plans.
