A FAST ATMOSPHERIC CORRECTION ALGORITHM APPLIED TO LANDSAT TM IMAGES

A fast atmospheric correction algorithm for the reflective bands (0.4-2.5 μm) of remote sensing instruments is presented. It proceeds in two steps: (1) calculation of the ground reflectance of each pixel based on precomputed planetary albedo functions for different standard atmospheres, aerosol types and optical depths, or actual atmospheric measurement data (e.g. radiosonde), (2) approximate correction of the adjacency efTect by taking into account the average reflectance in an NxN pixel neighbourhood and using appropriate weighting functions for the difference in reflectance. The correction functions are provided by the models LOWTRAN-7 and SENSAT-3. © Taylor & Francis Ltd.