Applicability of an automatic surface detection approach to micro-pulse photon-counting lidar altimetry data: implications for canopy height retrieval from future ICESat-2 data

摘要: We develop and validate an automated approach to determine canopy height, important metric for global biomass assessments, from micro-pulse photon-counting lidar data collected over forested ecosystems. Such a system is planned be launched aboard the National Aeronautics Space Administration’s follow-on Ice, Cloud land Elevation Satellite mission (ICESat-2) in 2017. For algorithm development purposes preparation mission, ICESat-2 project team produced simulated sets airborne observations of commercial instrument (developed by Sigma Corporation) two forests eastern USA. The technique derived this article based on multi-step mathematical statistical signal extraction process which applied set. First, ground surfaces are approximately extracted using information histogram elevations accumulated photons 100 footprints. S...