ECO-3D was a NASA field campaign that sought to study the 3-dimensional structure of vegetation to quantify the amount of stored carbon in biomass. ECO-3D consisted of one deployment based out of Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) during the boreal summer of 2011. NASA’s P-3 was equipped with three instruments: the Cloud Absorption Radiometer (CAR), the Digital Beam-forming Synthetic Aperture Radar (DBSAR), and the Swath Imaging Multi-polarization Photon-counting Lidar (SIMPL) to collect remotely-sensed measurements of vegetation. ECO-3D was funded through NASA's Airborne Science Program.
The Cloud Absorption Radiometer (CAR) is an airborne multi-wavelength scanning radiometer developed by Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). CAR provides measurements of scattered radiance and bidirectional reflectance of the surface across 14 spectral bands in the visible and near-infrared wavelengths (0.34-2.30 µm). It also acquires imagery of cloud and Earth surface features. CAR has a scan rate of 1.67 Hz (100 rpm) and has a spatial resolution of 4m at nadir for an altitude of 200m above ground level.
Earth Science > Atmosphere > Clouds > Cloud Radiative Transfer
The Slope Imaging Multi-polarization Photon-counting Lidar (SIMPL) is an airborne, multi-beam, single photon ranging lidar developed through the NASA Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO) Instrument Incubator Program (IIP). It measures lidar scattering properties to determine topography, surface roughness, vegetation characteristics, and surface elevation, typically for cryospheric research. SIMPL consists of four beams operating in green (532 nm) and near-infrared (1064 nm) wavelengths. It has a laser footprint of 0.3 m with a cross-track spacing of 8 m for a nominal flight altitude of 3.7 km.
