Development and Implementation of an Electronic Crosstalk Correction for Bands 27-30 in Terra MODIS Collection 6

The photovoltaic bands on the long-wave infrared focal plane assembly of Terra MODIS, bands 27–30, have suffered from steadily increasing contamination from electronic crosstalk as the mission has progressed. This contamination has a great impact on MODIS data products, including image striping and radiometric bias in the Level-1B calibrated radiance product, and incorrect retrieval in atmospheric products that rely on data from bands 27–30, such as the cloud mask and cloud particle phase products. In this work, we describe the development of an electronic crosstalk correction for bands 27–30 of Terra MODIS using observations of the Moon. In this approach, the derived correction coefficients account for both the “in-band” and “out-of-band” contribution to the signal contamination, which is not considered in previous implementations of the lunar-based correction. The correction coefficients are applied to both the on-board calibrator data and the Earth-view data, resulting in a significant reduction in the image striping and radiometric bias in the Level-1B data, as well as a better performance in the Level-2 cloud mask and cloud particle phase products. This approach will be implemented for Terra MODIS Collection 6 in 2017.