A Comparison Between AVHRR, MODIS, and VIIRS

The National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) is a tri-agency program designed to support missions of the Department of Commerce (DOC)/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Department of Defense (DoD), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). NPOESS will provide a critical, timely, reliable, and high quality space-based sensing capability to acquire and process global and regional environmental imagery and specialized meteorological, climatic, terrestrial, oceanographic, solar-geophysical, and other data products. One of the key sensors included in the NPOESS mission is the Visible/Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite (VIIRS). VIIRS represents a dramatic improvement over the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR), and incorporates many lessons learned from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS). This presentation will provide an overview of the differences between these sensors and their data products, assisting users with their transition into the NPOESS era.