Diurnal radiance and shadow fluctuations in a cold desert shrub plant community

Remote sensing data can be acquired during different times of the year and different times of the day using satellite or aircraft systems. Radiance values of pixels vary with ground target, latitude, time of year, and the time of day for both aerial and ground-measured data. An understanding of the resulting fluctuations in spectra provides information necessary to improve the interpretation of airborne and satellite data. Aerial and field-measured spectra vary for a typical desert shrub plant community with low vegetation cover (27%) and considerable shade differences and bare ground.