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Full catalog/BioSCape_PRISM_L1B_RDN_2493
BioSCape_PRISM_L1B_RDN_2493·v1·dataset

Calibrated airborne imaging-spectrometer light (BioSCape PRISM)

BioSCape: PRISM L1B Calibrated Radiance
land NASA ORNL_CLOUD Level 1B multiple
In plain English

What it measures. Carefully calibrated measurements of how much light the surface reflected across many narrow color bands, from near-ultraviolet through near-infrared. It was gathered over South Africa's Cape region in late 2023.

How it's made. Captured by the airborne PRISM imaging spectrometer flown on a G-III aircraft for the BioSCape biodiversity survey, then calibrated into radiance values.

How & where you'd use it. A detailed light-measurement input for studying biodiversity and coastal and aquatic ecosystems; typically used to derive higher-level maps rather than read directly.

What's measured

SPECTRAL/ENGINEERING › INFRARED WAVELENGTHS › INFRARED RADIANCESPECTRAL/ENGINEERING › VISIBLE WAVELENGTHS › VISIBLE RADIANCESPECTRAL/ENGINEERING › ULTRAVIOLET WAVELENGTHS › ULTRAVIOLET RADIANCE

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2023-10-17 → 2023-11-26
  • Measured byG-III (PRISM)
  • Processing levelLevel 1B
  • Spatial extent17.7864, -34.9003, 26.1522, -31.2403
  • Formatsmultiple
  • StatusCOMPLETE

What you can do with it

  • Track deforestation, fire scars and land-cover change
  • Monitor crop and vegetation health (NDVI/EVI)
  • Map how built-up vs. green an area is over time
Official description

This dataset holds Level 1B (L1B) calibrated radiance data collected by the Portable Remote Imaging SpectroMeter (PRISM) instrument. The data were acquired in October-November 2023 for the Biodiversity Survey of the Cape (BioSCape), an international collaboration between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the South African National Space Agency (SANSA) to study biodiversity in South Africa's Greater Cape Floristic Region (GCFR). PRISM is a compact image spectrometer that acquires data in the near ultraviolet (UV) to near infrared (IR) spectral bands between 350 and 1050 nanometers with 3.5 nm spectral resolution. PRISM also has a two-channel spot radiometer at short-wave infrared (SWIR) band (1240 nm and 1640 nm) in order to provide accurate atmospheric correction of the ocean color measurements. PRISM's capabilities make it well suited for studies of aquatic and coastal ecosystems. This dataset includes calibrated radiance and observational parameters in netCDF format, quicklook images as TIFF images, and processing information in text-based YAML format.

Get the data

bioscape_prism_l1b_rdn_2493_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="BioSCape_PRISM_L1B_RDN_2493",
    version="1",
    bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9),  # your area (W,S,E,N)
    temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"),       # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results)   # stream straight from ORNL_CLOUD
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.