Glossary

A B C D E F G I L M N O P R S T U V W X Y Z

Azimuth

The angle of an object’s position from true north.

Azimuthal exiting (degrees)

The angle between true north and the exiting direction in the slope geometry.

Azimuthal incident (degrees)

The angle between true north and the incident direction in the slope geometry.

Band

A discrete wavelength interval or range observed by a remote sensing instrument. 

Barest Earth

An estimate of the spectra of the barest state (i.e. least vegetation) observed from imagery of the Australian continent collected by the Landsat 5, 7, and 8 satellites.

Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF)

A function of four real variables that defines how light is reflected at an opaque surface. It is employed in surface reflectance satellite imagery, computer graphics and vision algorithms.

Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF) / Albedo Parameter

The Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF)/Albedo parameters provide:

• coefficients for mathematical functions that describe the BRDF of each pixel in the seven MODIS 'Land' bands (1- 7); and
• albedo measurements derived simultaneously from the BRDF for bands 1-7 as well as three broad bands (0.4-0.7, 0.7-3.0, and 0.4- 3.0 micrometers).

For more information see: NASA

Bureau of Meteorology (BoM)

Australia's national weather, climate and water agency.

For more information, see BoM.

C-SAR Instrument

Carried on the Sentinel-1 satellites the C-SAR instrument provides an all-weather, day and night imaging capability to capture measurement data at high and medium resolutions for land, coastal zones and ice observations. It is an active phased array antenna providing fast scanning in elevation and in azimuth.

For more information see: The European Space Agency - SAR Instrument

Collection

All products downstream of the rawest form of the main input data (telemetry), produced sequentially and processed with consistent algorithm/code/inputs/outputs.