Glossary of Terms

AERONET Aerosol Robotic Network
AirMISR Airborne Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer
AMSR Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer
AMSU Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit
AOI angle of incidence
ARM Atmospheric Radiation Measurement program
ASF Alaska SAR Facility
ASTER Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer
AVHRR Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer
AVIRIS Airborne Visible and Infrared Imaging Spectrometer
BOREAS Boreal Ecosystem - Atmosphere Study
BRDF bidirectional reflectance distribution func-tion
BSRN Baseline Surface Radiation Network
CAM calibration attitude maneuver
CERES Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System Network
CIESIN Consortium for International Earth Science Information Network
CZCS Coastal Zone Color Scanner
DAAC Distributed Active Archive Center
DAO Data Assimilation Office
DEM digital elevation model
DoE Department of Energy
ECS EOSDIS Core System
EDC EROS Data Center
EDOS EOS Data and Operations System
El Niño Spanish for the “Christ Child”; refers to the warm Pacific Ocean currents that periodically appear around Christmas time and can last for months.
ENSO El Niño Southern Oscillation
ERBE Earth Radiation Budget Experiment
EOS Earth Observing System
Terra the first EOS platform (launches in 1998); crosses the equator at 10:30 a.m. in a descending polar orbit
EOS CHEM EOS Chemistry Mission
Aqua the second EOS platform (launches December 2000); crosses the equator at 1:30 p.m. in an ascending polar orbit
EOSDIS EOS Data and Information System
EPA Environmental Protection Agency
EROS Earth Resources Observation System
ESE Earth Science Enterprise
FEWS Famine Early Warning System
GCM General Circulation Model
GCP ground control point
GDS Ground Data System
GSFC Goddard Space Flight Center
ICESat-1 Ice Cloud & land Elevation Satellite
IDS Interdisciplinary Science
IRT Infrared thermal
JAROS Japan Resources Observation System Organization
Jason-1 EOS Radar Altimeter
JPL Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Landsat Land Remote-sensing Satellite
LaRC Langley Research Center
LTER Long-Term Ecological Research
MAS MODIS Airborne Simulator
MASTER MODIS/ASTER Airborne Simulator
MATR MOPITT Airborne Test Radiometer
MELCO Mitsubishi Electric Company
Meteor-3M Russian Operational Weather Satellite
MISR Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer
MITI Japan’s Ministry of International Trade and Industry
MMR Modular Multi-band Radiometer
MOBY Marine Optical Buoy
MODIS Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer
MOPITT Measurements of Pollution in the Troposphere
MTF modulation transfer function
MWIR Mid-wave Infrared
NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration
NASDA National Space Development Agency of Japan
NAU Northern Arizona University
NCAR National Center for Atmospheric Research
NDVI Normalized Difference Vegetation Index
NIST National Institute of Standards and Technology
NOAA National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
NRLM National Research Laboratory of Metrology (Japan)
NSF National Science Foundation
NSIDC National Snow and Ice Data Center
OBC onboard calibrator
ORNL Oak Ridge National Laboratory
PARABOLA III Portable Apparatus for Rapid Acquisition of Bidirectional Observations of the Land and Atmosphere
POLDER Polarization and Directionality of Earth’s Reflectances
RGB Red/Green/Blue color
SAGE III Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment III
SAR Synthetic Aperture Radar
SBRS Hughes Corporation’s Santa Barbara Remote Sensing
SCF Science Computing Facility
SCAR-B Smoke, Clouds, and Radiation-Brazil
SeaWiFS Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor
SI Systeme Internationale
SRCA Spectroradiometric Calibration Assembly
SST Sea Surface Temperature
SWAMP Science Working Group for the EOS AM-1 Platform
SWIR Short-Wavelength Infrared
TDRSS Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System
TIR Thermal Infrared
TIROS Television and Infrared Observation Satellite
TLCF Team Leader Computing Facility
TM Thematic Mapper
TOMS Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer
TOVS TIROS Operational Vertical Sounder
TRMM Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission
USGS United States Geological Survey
VNIR Visible and Near-Infrared
WCRP World Climate Research Program


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