Development and implementation of an electronic crosstalk correction for bands 27-30 in terra MODIS collection 6

Abstract

The photovoltaic bands on the long-wave infrared focal plane assembly of Terra MODIS, bands 27-30, have suffered from steadily increasing contamination from electronic crosstalk as the mission has progressed. This contamination has a great impact on MODIS data products, including image striping and radiometric bias in the Level-1B calibrated radiance product, and incorrect retrieval in atmospheric products that rely on data from bands 27-30, such as the cloud mask and cloud particle phase products. In this work, we describe the development of an electronic crosstalk correction for bands 27-30 of Terra MODIS using observations of the Moon. In this approach, the derived correction coefficients account for both the "in-band" and "out-of-band" contribution to the signal contamination, which is not considered in previous implementations of the lunar-based correction. The correction coefficients are applied to both the on-board calibrator data and the Earth-view data, resulting in a significant reduction in the image striping and radiometric bias in the Level-1B data, as well as a better performance in the Level-2 cloud mask and cloud particle phase products. This approach will be implemented for Terra MODIS Collection 6 in 2017.