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Comprehensive investigations on the between-sensor comparability among Landsat sensors have been relatively limited compared with the increasing use of multi-temporal Landsat records in time series analyses. More seriously, the sensor-related difference has not always been considered in applications. Accordingly, comparisons were conducted among all Landsat sensors available currently, including Multispectral Scanner (MSS), Thematic Mappers (TM), Enhanced Thematic Mappers (ETM+), and Operational Land Imager (OLI)) in land cover mapping, based on a collection of synthesized, multispectral data. Compared to TM, OLI showed obvious between-sensor differences in channel reflectance, especially over the near infrared (NIR) and shortwave infrared (SWIR) channels, and presented positive bias in vegetation spectral indices. OLI did not always outperform TM and ETM+ in classification, which related to the methods used. Furthermore, the channels over SWIR of TM and its successors contributed largely to enhancement of inter-class separability and to improvement of classification. Currently, the inclusion of MSS data is confronted with significant challenges regarding the consistency of surface mapping. Considering the inconsistency among the Landsat sensors, it is applicable to generate a consistent time series of spectral indices through proper transformation models. Meanwhile, it suggests the generation of specific class(es) based on interest instead of including all classes simultaneously.

Compact polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (CP SAR), as a new technique or observation system, has attracted much attention in recent years. Compared with quad-polarization SAR (QP SAR), CP SAR provides an observation with a wider swath, while, compared with linear dual-polarization SAR, retains more polarization information in observations. These characteristics make CP SAR a useful tool in marine environmental applications. Previous studies showed the potential of CP SAR images for ship detection. However, false alarms, caused by ocean clutter and the lack of detailed information about ships, largely hinder traditional methods from feature selection for ship discrimination. In this paper, a segmentation method designed specifically for ship detection from CP SAR images is proposed. The pixel-wise detection is based on a fully convolutional network (i.e., U-Net). In particular, three classes (ship, land, and sea) were considered in the classification scheme. To extract features, a series of down-samplings with several convolutions were employed. Then, to generate classifications, deep semantic and shallow high-resolution features were used in up-sampling. Experiments on several CP SAR images simulated from Gaofen-3 QP SAR images demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. Compared with Faster RCNN (region-based convolutional neural network), which is considered a popular and effective deep learning network for object detection, the newly proposed method, with precision and recall greater than 90% and a F1 score of 0.912, performs better at ship detection. Additionally, findings verify the advantages of the CP configuration compared with single polarization and linear dual-polarization.

Landsat 4-5, built at the same time and with the same design, carrying the Multispectral Scanner System (MSS) and the Thematic Mapper (TM) simultaneously, jointly provided observation service for about 30 years (1982−2013). Considering the importance of data continuity for time series analyses, investigations on the continuity of the Landsat 4-5 MSS and TM are required. In this paper, characterization differences between the Landsat 4-5 MSS and TM were initially discussed using the synthesized reflectance records generated from a collection of Hyperion hyperspectral profiles which were well calibrated and widely distributed. The difference in near-infrared region mostly contributed to the difference in normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) between MSS and TM, while the between-sensor difference in red spectrum was relatively minor. Models for transforming MSS NDVI to TM NDVI were proposed, and validated subsequently through cross-validation tests. Furthermore, effectiveness of the transformation models was investigated using eight synchronous observation pairs of the Landsat 5 MSS and TM. On average, the univariate models through ordinary least squares regression (OLS) regression resulted in a decrease about 10% of the median relative difference (MdRD). Meanwhile, the bivariate models improved the NDVI comparability in most cases, especially when the transformation models through ridge regression were implemented. The univariate model through OLS regression could be the only solution for cases when problems of data quality are encountered (e.g., problem in the MSS near-infrared channel (800−1000 nm)). In conclusion, the findings on NDVI transformation models from MSS to TM are valuable for reference, because of the collection of diverse Hyperion hyperspectral profiles used.