Published: Feb. 3, 2025
Visible to shortwave infrared (VSWIR) and thermal infrared (TIR) instruments are essential for advancing earth systems research goals across several disciplines. The VSWIR Imaging and TIR Applications, Learning, and Science (VITALS) repository provides Python Jupyter notebooks to introduce users to working with these datasets. Currently these resources focus on products from the Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) and ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) missions, two precursors to the NASA Surface Biology and Geology (SBG) mission. The notebooks contained in this repository are designed to teach users to find concurrent scenes and integrate data from both instruments into an analysis. Additionally, there are real-world use case examples including generating estimated canopy water content and vegetation indices from EMIT reflectance data and pairing those variables with surface temperature and evapotranspiration data from ECOSTRESS to examine invasive plant species and the health of agriculture in the greater Santa Barbara, CA region. Overall, VITALS aims to assist new users of VSWIR and TIR data with their science applications, while also enabling more experienced user to get hands-on practice with EMIT and ECOSTRESS data to meet their current objectives and prepare for future SBG products.
Contributions are welcome!