PRISM-19


Lake Calibration

Project Overview 

The in-flight calibration check is accomplished by flying over a water body and ground stations. Lake Wyangan (Figure 4-8) will be used as the cold in-flight calibration target of P-/L-/K-band radiometers. Given the relatively small size of the water storage, the aircraft will be flown at the lowest permissible altitude (500ft) within the lake boundary along a distance of around 1 km.

Ground requirements for over-water flights include monitoring of the water temperature and salinity within the top 1 cm layer of water. Both quantities will be monitored continuously during the campaign using a UNIDATA 6536B® temperature and salinity sensor connected to a logger, located at 146°1.32’ E and 34°13.14’ S at Lake Wyangan. Furthermore, transects of water temperature and salinity in the top 1 cm layer will be undertaken with a handheld temperature and salinity meter (Hydralab Quanta®) at the start and end of PRISM campaign (see Figure 4-). This will involve making northsouth and east-west transects at 100 m spacing centred on the monitoring station. The purpose of these measurements is to check for spatial variability.

Lake Calibration Equipment

PLEASE NOTE: The following data sets should be acknowledged according to the following:

PRISM-19:

X. Wu, N. Ye, J. Walker, I.-Y. Yeo, T. Jackson, Y. Kerr, E. Kim and A. McGrath. (2019). The P-band Radiometer Inferred Soil Moisture Experiment 2019 WORKPLAN. Monash University, 121.