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JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH,
VOL. 112,
D09111,
28 PP., 2007
doi:10.1029/2006JD007821
Third Radiation Transfer Model Intercomparison (RAMI) exercise: Documenting progress in canopy reflectance models
Global Environment Monitoring Unit, Institute for Environment and Sustainability, European Commission–DG Joint Research Centre, Ispra, Italy
Global Environment Monitoring Unit, Institute for Environment and Sustainability, European Commission–DG Joint Research Centre, Ispra, Italy
Global Environment Monitoring Unit, Institute for Environment and Sustainability, European Commission–DG Joint Research Centre, Ispra, Italy
NOVELTIS, Ramonville Saint-Agne, France
Department of Geography, University College London, London, UK
Canada Centre for Remote Sensing, Natural Resources Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Centre d'Etudes Spatiales de la Biosphère, Toulouse, France
Global Environment Monitoring Unit, Institute for Environment and Sustainability, European Commission–DG Joint Research Centre, Ispra, Italy
Tartu Observatory, Tõravere, Estonia
Global Environment Monitoring Unit, Institute for Environment and Sustainability, European Commission–DG Joint Research Centre, Ispra, Italy
Centre Spatial John H. Chapman, Saint-Huber, Québec, Canada
Department of Geography, University College London, London, UK
Centre d'Etudes Spatiales de la Biosphère, Toulouse, France
Tartu Observatory, Tõravere, Estonia
Climate and Land-Surface Systems Interaction Centre, Department of Geography, University of Wales, Swansea, UK
Science Systems and Applications, Inc., Lanham, Maryland, USA
Global Environment Monitoring Unit, Institute for Environment and Sustainability, European Commission–DG Joint Research Centre, Ispra, Italy
Canada Centre for Remote Sensing, Natural Resources Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
NOVELTIS, Ramonville Saint-Agne, France
Acquisition, Representation and Transformations for Image Synthesis, Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique Rhône-Alpes, Saint Ismier, France
Alachua Research Institute, Alachua, Florida, USA
National Aerospace Laboratory NLR, Emmeloord, Netherlands
Global Environment Monitoring Unit, Institute for Environment and Sustainability, European Commission–DG Joint Research Centre, Ispra, Italy
Research Center for Remote Sensing and GIS, School of Geography, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China
The Radiation Transfer Model Intercomparison (RAMI) initiative benchmarks canopy reflectance models under well-controlled experimental conditions. Launched for the first time in 1999, this triennial community exercise encourages the systematic evaluation of canopy reflectance models on a voluntary basis. The first phase of RAMI focused on documenting the spread among radiative transfer (RT) simulations over a small set of primarily 1-D canopies. The second phase expanded the scope to include structurally complex 3-D plant architectures with and without background topography. Here sometimes significant discrepancies were noted which effectively prevented the definition of a reliable “surrogate truth,” over heterogeneous vegetation canopies, against which other RT models could then be compared. The present paper documents the outcome of the third phase of RAMI, highlighting both the significant progress that has been made in terms of model agreement since RAMI-2 and the capability of/need for RT models to accurately reproduce local estimates of radiative quantities under conditions that are reminiscent of in situ measurements. Our assessment of the self-consistency and the relative and absolute performance of 3-D Monte Carlo models in RAMI-3 supports their usage in the generation of a “surrogate truth” for all RAMI test cases. This development then leads (1) to the presentation of the “RAMI Online Model Checker” (ROMC), an open-access web-based interface to evaluate RT models automatically, and (2) to a reassessment of the role, scope, and opportunities of the RAMI project in the future.
Received 24 July 2006; accepted 29 November 2006; published 8 May 2007.
Citation: (2007), Third Radiation Transfer Model Intercomparison (RAMI) exercise: Documenting progress in canopy reflectance models, J. Geophys. Res., 112, D09111, doi:10.1029/2006JD007821.
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