Libya 1

EROS Cal/Val Center of Excellence (ECCOE)
Test Sites Catalog
Libya 1
Landsat 8 LandsatLook Image Path 187 Row 41 Acquired 19 Aug 2020 with CEOS ROI indicated Google Earth Image centered on Libya 1 CEOS ROI

Description

The Libya 1 site is located within the Sahara Desert in Africa. As a Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) Working Group for Calibration and Validation (WGCV) Infrared and Visible Optical Sensors (IVOS) referenced test site, this site fulfills the required characteristics for being considered as a Pseudo-invariant Calibration Site (PICS), such as temporal stability, spatial homogeneity, data availability, higher surface reflectance, minimal atmospheric effects, and little or no vegetation. Moreover, the site is located in an area large enough to accommodate sampling of a large number of pixels and large enough to minimize atmospheric adjacency effects from the light outside of the region [1].

Usability

Libya 1 has significant importance within the Earth Observation community for monitoring satellite sensor calibration performance over time. This site can be used for long-term stability monitoring and cross-calibration of low, medium, and high spatial resolution sensors, as well as for multispectral and reflected solar wavelength Earth imaging sensors [2, 3].  This site has also been used in absolute radiometric calibration [4].

Location (City, State, Country):
Libya, Africa
Landsat WRS - 2 Path / Row:
187/43
Center Latitude (degrees):
N 24.42
Center Longitude (degrees):
E 13.35
CEOS Region of Interest

N 24.87, E 12.90
N 24.87, E 13.80
N 23.97, E 13.80
N 23.97, E 12.90

Search this area in EarthExplorer (Landsat Collection 2 Level-1 - date range, datasets, cloud cover and other criteria can be modified once initial results are returned

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CNES Region of Interest

N 24.60 E 13.20 
N 24.60 E 13.40
N 24.40 E 13.40
N 24.40 E 13.20

Search this area in EarthExplorer (Landsat Collection 2 Level-1) - date range, datasets, cloud cover and other criteria can be modified once initial results are returned

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UTM Zone:
33
Altitude above sea level (meters):
648
Purpose:
Radiometry
Status:
Active

References:
  1. Chander, Gyanesh, Amit Angal, Xiaoxiong Jack Xiong, Dennis L. Helder, Nischal Mishra, Taeyoung Jason Choi, and Aisheng Wu. "Preliminary assessment of several parameters to measure and compare usefulness of the CEOS reference pseudo-invariant calibration sites." In Sensors, Systems, and Next-Generation Satellites XIV, vol. 7826, p. 78262L. International Society for Optics and Photonics, 2010. 
  2. Chander, Gyanesh, Xiaoxiong Jack Xiong, Taeyoung Jason Choi, and Amit Angal. "Monitoring on-orbit calibration stability of the Terra MODIS and Landsat 7 ETM+ sensors using pseudo-invariant test sites." Remote Sensing of Environment 114, no. 4 (2010): 925-939. 
  3. Barsi, Julia A., Bahjat Alhammoud, Jeffrey Czapla-Myers, Ferran Gascon, Md Obaidul Haque, Morakot Kaewmanee, Larry Leigh, and Brian L. Markham. "Sentinel-2A MSI and Landsat-8 OLI radiometric cross comparison over desert sites." European Journal of Remote Sensing 51, no. 1 (2018): 822-837. 
  4. Raut, B.; Kaewmanee, M.; Angal, A.; Xiong, X.; Helder, D. Empirical Absolute Calibration Model for Multiple Pseudo-Invariant Calibration Sites. Remote Sens. 2019, 11, 1105. 

Note: This information has been compiled by the USGS ECCOE Team, using the best sources currently known. Updates will be made as more information becomes available. Please contact eccoe@usgs.gov with any updates you would like to contribute.