SCIENCE CHINA

Earth Sciences
• RESEARCH PAPER • April 2015 Vol.58 No.4: 573–588
doi: 10.1007/s11430-014-4997-y

Multi-scale validation strategy for satellite albedo products

and its uncertainty analysis
PENG JingJing1, LIU Qiang2*, WEN JianGuang1, LIU QinHuo1, TANG Yong1,
WANG LiZhao2, DOU BaoCheng1, YOU DongQin1, SUN ChangKui1,
ZHAO XiaoJie1, FENG YouBin2 & SHI Jian1
1
State Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing Science, Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth of
Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China;
2
College of Global Change and Earth System Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China

Received March 31, 2014; accepted October 8, 2014; published online December 8, 2014

Coarse-resolution satellite albedo products are important for climate change and energy balance research because of their
capability to characterize the spatiotemporal patterns of land surface parameters at both the regional and global scales. The
accuracy of coarse-resolution products is usually assessed via comparison with in situ measurements. The key issue in the
comparison of remote sensing observations with in situ measurements is scaling and uncertainty. This paper presents a
strategy for validating 1-km-resolution remote sensing albedo products using field measurements and high-resolution re-
mote sensing observations. Field measurements were collected to calibrate the high-resolution (30 m) albedo products de-
rived from HJ-1a/b images. Then, the calibrated high-resolution albedo maps were resampled (i.e., upscaled) to assess the
accuracy of the coarse-resolution albedo products. The samples of field measurements and high-resolution pixels are based
on an uncertainty analysis. Two types of coarse-resolution albedo datasets, from global land surface satellite (GLASS) and
moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS), are validated over the middle reaches of the Heihe River in Chi-
na. The results indicate that the upscaled HJ (Huan Jing means environment in Chinese and this refers to a satellite constel-
lation designed for environment and disaster monitoring by China) albedo, which was calibrated using field measurements,
can provide accurate reference values for validating coarse-resolution satellite albedo products. However, the uncertainties
in the upscaled HJ albedo should be estimated, and pixels with large uncertainties should be excluded from the validation
process.

MCD43B3, GLASS02, uncertainty analysis, validation, remote sensing, albedo

Citation: Peng J J, Liu Q, Wen J G, et al. 2015. Multi-scale validation strategy for satellite albedo products and its uncertainty analysis. Science China: Earth
Sciences, 58: 573–588, doi: 10.1007/s11430-014-4997-y

Over the past two decades, a variety of land-surface albedo
products have been routinely generated from various satel-
lite data, including moderate-resolution imaging spectrora-
diometer (MODIS) albedo products (Schaaf et al., 2002)
produced by NASA, a global land surface satellite (GLASS)
albedo product (Liu et al., 2012; Liang et al., 2013; Liu et
*Corresponding author (email: liuqiang@bnu.edu.cn)
al., 2013; Qu et al., 2013) produced in China, and Global
Land Surface Albedo (GLOBALBEDO) from Satellite Data
(Lewis et al., 2012) produced by the European Space
Agency (ESA). One way to calibrate/validate (CAL/VAL)
these surface albedo products is to compare reliable surface
albedo values taken from field measurements with those
taken from satellite pixels (Liang et al., 2002; Jin, 2003;
Wang et al., 2004; Salomon et al., 2006; Hautecoeur and
Roujean, 2007; Susaki et al., 2007; Chen et al., 2008; Liu et

© Science China Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014 earth.scichina.com link.springer.com
574 Peng J J, et al. Sci China Earth Sci
al., 2009; Zhang et al., 2010; Román et al., 2011; Cescatti et
al., 2012; Wang et al., 2012). However, because of the scale
discrepancy between point-scale in situ measurements and
pixel-scale remote sensing observations, the errors caused
by different comparison scales greatly affect albedo product
validation. Upscaling field measurements from the point
scale to the pixel scale is a challenge in CAL/VAL activities
(Cohen and Justice, 1999; Barnsley et al., 2000; Lucht et al.,
2000; Liang et al., 2002; Jin, 2003; Susaki et al., 2007;
Roman et al., 2013; Wang et al., 2014).
Three common approaches are taken to reduce scaling
errors. One approach is to set validation sites within homo-
geneous areas. In this case, surface measurements with
small instantaneous fields of view (IFOVs) are able to rep-
resent the footprint of coarse-resolution pixels (Liang et al.,
2002; Wang et al., 2004; Zhang et al., 2010). Previous stud-
ies have employed direct “point-to-pixel” comparisons in
these circumstances (Hautecœur and Leroy, 1998; Barnsley
et al., 2000; Jin, 2003; Salomon et al., 2006; Chen et al.,
2008; Rutan et al., 2009). Moreover, Susaki et al. (2007)
demonstrated that differences in the albedo spatial resolu-
tion have negligible effects when the measurement sites can
be assumed to be homogeneous. However, completely ho-
mogeneous areas at the scale of coarse-resolution pixels are
limited. Another approach is to choose those measurements
in which the IFOV is representative of the satellite pixel
footprint (Barnsley et al., 2000; Román et al., 2009; Román
et al., 2011; Cescatti et al., 2012; Wang et al., 2012); these
measurements are usually gathered from the tops of towers
of sufficient height. The representativeness of tower meas-
urements is assessed by analyzing the spatial variation in
the vicinity of the tower (Lucht et al., 2000; Román et al.,
2009). Given that only a few field sites qualify, that these
sites are not evenly distributed on the global scale, and that
they cannot cover all land types, this validation approach is
limited (Roman et al., 2013).
The third approach, which utilizes high-resolution, re-
motely sensed imagery to upscale the point-scale measure-
ments to coarse resolutions (Liang et al., 2002; Wang et al.,
2004), is applicable for more heterogeneous areas. The ear-
liest prototype of this method used high-resolution images
to derive the fractional ground cover of different scene ele-
ments and assigned typical albedos to each scene element.
The coarse-resolution albedo is subsequently predicted us-
ing a linear mixture model. The limitations of this approach
include the effects of land-cover classification errors and the
representativeness of the albedo values (Barnsley et al.,
2000; Lucht et al., 2000). Liang improved the inversion
method for high-resolution albedo and directly used the data
as the upscaling bridge (Liang et al., 2002). This multi-scale
validation procedure was summarized by Zhang (Zhang et
al., 2010) as performing “two matches”: first, the in situ
measurements are matched with the high-resolution remote
sensing products; then, the high-resolution remote sensing
products are matched with the coarse-resolution product.
April (2015) Vol.58 No.4
When both matches are tested and approved, the coarse-
resolution product is validated. The advantage of this
method is the introduction of the high-resolution albedo
information. Consequently, the validation results are af-
fected by the high-resolution albedo uncertainties.
Therefore, although the reference values approximate the
ground truth, the errors in the reference values, which is due
to uncertainties in the validation process and the reference
data source, cannot be overlooked. The three main steps of
the uncertainty analysis include the following: the identifi-
cation of all uncertainty sources, uncertainty modeling and
uncertainty propagation (Crosetto and Tarantola, 2001).
These uncertainties come from intrinsic errors within in situ
measurements and from external errors caused by naviga-
tion or registration, inaccurate atmospheric correction, and
scale conversion (Liang et al., 2002; Wang et al., 2004;
Buriez et al., 2007; Zhang et al., 2010). The uncertainty
involved in remote sensing products has a significant effect
on the accuracy of the modeling and the analysis of
land-surface systems (Li and Wang, 2013; Li, 2014). These
uncertainties can result in an overestimation of the error of
the albedo product (Liang et al., 2002; Wang et al., 2004).
The absence of uncertainty assessments restricts the appli-
cation of multi-scale validation strategies in many ways. For
example, the first match might not be satisfied because of
the limited accuracy of the high-resolution product. With
regard to the second match, the large uncertainty in the ref-
erence value of certain pixels might lead to an exaggerated
assessment of the satellite product error.
The current study systematically assesses the uncertain-
ties in the reference values for each pixel and designs a
multi-scale validation strategy that minimizes uncertainties
and their influence on the validation results. The validation
results are presented with a discussion of the effect of the
uncertainty control strategy.
1 Methodology
The framework for the multi-scale validation of the coarse-
resolution albedo products is shown in Figure 1. Briefly,
three major steps are involved: (1) collecting the in situ
measurements; (2) calibrating the high-resolution albedo
maps with the in situ measurements; and (3) assessing the
uncertainty level of each coarse-resolution pixel using the
co-area high-resolution pixels. Using this framework, sev-
eral procedures are designed to control the uncertainties in
the validation based on the analysis of the uncertainty sources
and their propagation. For the in situ measurements, a sam-
pling scheme is employed to catch the heterogeneity on
both the 30 m and the 1 km scales. Each coarse-resolution
pixel is scored according to its total uncertainty resulting
from geometric misalignment and nonlinearity in the albedo
upscaling. Then, the candidate pixels with acceptable un-
certainty are used in the validation of the albedo products.
 Peng J J, et al.
Figure 1 The proposed multi-validation procedures for the coarse-resolution albedo products. The solid-color boxes identify the steps that might introduce
uncertainties into the validation, and the gradient-filled boxes identify the solutions to the uncertainties that result from the previous step.
1.1 Uncertainties in the validation and their assessment
1.1.1 Uncertainty sources and propagation
The key issue in validating satellite albedo products is esti-
mating their reference values at the pixel scale. Using the
multi-scale validation framework, the reference value is the
aggregated co-area high-resolution albedo. However, a ref-
erence value might not always be a satisfactory approxima-
tion of the true surface albedo because of the uncertainties
in the validation procedure (Figure 2).
Uncertainty originates from both the data source and the
validation process. In terms of data, both field measure-
ments and high-resolution albedo maps are subject to errors.
The errors within in situ measurements results from imper-
fect instruments, inappropriate operations, and insufficient
samples. Conversely, proper instruments, strict operation
protocols, and reasonable sampling schemes reduce field
measurement uncertainties. The errors in the high-resolution
albedo products originate from instrumental limitations,
radiometric calibrations, geometric mismatches, atmospheric
corrections, and retrieval algorithms. The data errors in-
clude bias and random errors. Field measurement bias can
be reduced by proper instrument adjustment prior to use and
careful operation, whereas random errors in field measure-
ments can be reduced with repeated measurements. Random
errors in high-resolution albedo products are reduced during
the upscaling (i.e., averaging) process, whereas bias is pre-
served. Therefore, bias in high-resolution albedo products
should be corrected for as much as possible. For this pur-
Sci China Earth Sci April (2015) Vol.58 No.4 575
pose, field measurements are referenced to calibrate the bias
in high-resolution albedo products.
Scale effects and geometric mismatches between two
images introduce uncertainty in the upscaling process. As
Wu and Li (2009) summarized, scale effects “refer to the
contrast of information or the different characteristics at
different scales”, and their primary causes are surface het-
erogeneity and the linearity/nonlinearity of the retrieving
algorithms. In this context, the uncertainty caused by the
scale effect is the combined result of spatial heterogeneity
and the retrieval model. As previous studies have revealed,
the linearity/non-linearity of the retrieval model is important
for scale effects. Albedo is usually retrieved using a linear
model. However, even a linear model can result in a scale
effect when non-uniform illumination (shading or sheltering)
or multiple scattering (multiple collisions between light rays
and the in situ surface) is involved because these effects
change the amount of reflected radiation. Non-uniform il-
lumination incurs a scale effect only if intra-pixel heteroge-
neity exists, whereas multiple scattering incurs a scale effect
even with a uniform surface (Li et al., 2000). Topology is
the primary cause for non-uniform illumination and multi-
ple scattering between 30 m and 1 km (Wen et al., 2009).
In contrast, the uncertainty from geometric mismatching
is independent of retrieval algorithms. Two types of geo-
metric mismatching exist: registration error, which results
from incorrect operations and is beyond the scope of this
paper, and intrinsic uncertainty, which cannot be avoided.
Because the basic unit of a remote sensing image is the pixel,
576 Peng J J, et al. Sci China Earth Sci April (2015) Vol.58 No.4

Figure 2 Illustration of the predominant uncertainty sources and their contribution to the total uncertainty in a reference value. The left boxes list the main
sources of uncertainty in the validation. After the processing steps shown in the intermediate boxes, these uncertainty sources add up to the total uncertainty
shown in the box on the right.

and resampling occurs several times in albedo product gen- (2)–(5) present the detailed calculation of each item:
eration, it is difficult to improve the sub-pixel registration
accuracy of a coarse-resolution pixel (Tan et al., 2006).  grd
2

 grd
2
 bgrd
2
 , (2)
Therefore, this paper considers sub-pixel geometric mis- n
matching to be an intrinsic feature of remote sensing albedo
products. The uncertainty caused by geometric mismatching  high
2
 high
2

 high
2
  , (3)
directly adds to the final total uncertainty, whereas the other n m
uncertainties are increased or decreased after upscaling.
 gm
2

 
2
2
gm
2
gm1  , (4)
1.1.2 Uncertainties in the validation and their assessment n
The aforementioned uncertainties affect the accuracy of the 2
reference values. The validation strategy reduces the uncer-  scale
2
 (t1 h2  t2  ) f topo . (5)
tainties as much as possible and assesses the residual uncer-
tainty. Therefore, the uncertainty propagation is process- In eq. (2),  grd
2
is composed of the bias in the in situ
based instead of model-based. Because the uncertainty sources 2
measurements bgrd and the random noise in the in situ
are independent, summing the squared uncertainties of dif-
ferent sources and mechanisms is a practical method for measurements grd
2
. If the appropriate protocol is followed
obtaining the final uncertainty in the reference values. Eq. 2
to collect the measurements, bgrd is typically small. The
(1) is proposed to conceptually represent the sources and
propagation of uncertainties as well as to estimate the total effect of grd
2
should be weakened due to repeated sam-
uncertainty in a reference value: pling. Moreover, n is the number of samples used in the
calibration of the high-resolution albedo data.
 tot
2
  grd
2
  high
2
+ gm
2
  scale
2
, (1)
In eq. (3),  high
2
primarily originates from the random
where  tot
2
is the uncertainty in the reference albedo value noise in the high-resolution albedo high
2
, which is weak-
for each coarse-resolution pixel calculated from the up- ened by the two-stage upscaling. The question about bias in
scaled high-resolution albedo. The four items on the right the original high-resolution albedo resurfaces due to eq. (3).
side of the equation estimate the uncertainty derived from However, by calibrating the high-resolution albedo with the
the in situ measurements, the high-resolution albedo image, in situ measurements, the bias in the high-resolution albedo
the geometric matching and upscaling, respectively. Eqs. is eliminated. Moreover, the uncertainty in the in situ meas-
 Peng J J, et al.
urements is transferred into the calibrated high-resolution
albedo product. The uncertainty in the high-resolution al-
bedo that is calibrated with the in situ measurements is as
follows:
 grd
2
  high
2
  gm
2
 c2 high  bgrd
2
2
 ,
n templates are shifted up, down, left, and right by a half pixel
which consists of the uncertainty derived from the in situ-
measured albedo, the random-noise of the high-resolution
albedo and the geometric mismatch uncertainty in the first
validation match. The importance of these uncertainties
decreases as the sample number n increases.
In eq. (4),  gm
2 tainty caused by geometric mismatching:
2 is the uncertainty that results from the
geometric mismatch between the in situ measurements and
the high-resolution pixels. It is determined using the geo-
metric registration accuracy and the heterogeneity of the
sampling area. The geometric registration RMSE for the
high-resolution albedo is confined to less than 0.5 pixels in
the application scenario. By considering the registration
uncertainty, the in situ measurement area is extended to 2×2
pixels, and the standard deviation is used to evaluate the
heterogeneity within the measurement area, which is ap-
proximately 0.0007–0.01 in the studied application.  gm1 2
is the geometric mismatch between the coarse-resolution
albedo product and the upscaled, calibrated high-resolution
albedo. In a remote sensing image prior to geometric regis-
tration, the IFOV of a pixel can be characterized by its center
location and spatial response function. For example, the
pixels in a MODIS level 1B image have triangular spatial
response functions, and their center geo-locations are pro-
vided in the MOD/MYD03 product with an accuracy of
50 m (1) at the minimum (Wolfe et al., 2002; Tan et al.,
2006). However, for advanced geo-referenced remote sens-
ing products, the geolocation error is enlarged because of
the geometric transformation and re-sampling process com-
bined with the variations in the pixel footprint (Tan et al.,
2006). Here, a pixel in a geo-referenced image is referred to
as a nominal pixel, whose center is located in the regular
grid point; a pixel in the image prior to geometric correction
is referred to as an original pixel. The physical parameters
of nominal pixels are derived from the raw pixels whose
center locations are not exactly located in the grid point.
Thus, the actual location of these physical parameters is not
the location of the nominal pixel, and an indelible uncer-
tainty exists in the location of the remote sensing product.
Therefore, half a pixel might be a reasonable estimate of the
geolocation displacement of a coarse-resolution albedo
product. The spatial response function of the nominal pixel
is even more difficult to characterize because the parameter
of the nominal pixel sometimes originates from more than
one raw pixel. Here, a statistical method was proposed to
assess the uncertainty due to geometric mismatching: three
different spatial response functions, Gaussian, triangular,
and rectangular distributions, are adopted to sample the
Sci China Earth Sci April (2015) Vol.58 No.4 577
values in a high-resolution albedo map. The Gaussian and
triangular distributions are used to describe the spatial re-
sponse characteristics of the MODIS reflectance products in
previous studies (Huang et al., 2002; Tan et al., 2006). Un-
der an ideal hypothesis, the spatial response characteristics
(6) show a uniform rectangular shape (Huang et al., 2002). The
to simulate geolocation error (Figure 3). Each pair of tem-
plate and position shifts leads to the possible sample value,
Ai. In all, 15 samples were collected for each coarse-resolu-
tion pixel;  represents the average of the samples. The
standard deviation of these 15 values estimates the uncer-
15
 ( A  )
i
2
 gm1 = i 1
. (7)
15
Equation (5) estimates the scaling uncertainty,  scale , in a
semi-empirical way.  h2 denotes the intra-pixel heterogeneity
estimated by the standard deviations of the high- resolution
albedo within a coarse-resolution pixel;  denotes the
average high-resolution albedo within a coarse- resolution
pixel. A topology factor, ftopo, is used to characterize the
roughness of the terrain, which is defined as the average
slope angle of the high-resolution pixels within a
low-resolution pixel. The effect of non-uniform illumination
is expressed as t1 h2 f topo , and the effect of multiple scatter-
2
ing is expressed as t2  f topo . t1 and t2 are two empirical
constants derived via numerical simulation, which can be
estimated via linear regression with the simulated values of
scale,  h2 and  from a sufficiently large set of scenarios..
The actual DEM for the upstream portion of the Heihe River
Basin and remote sensing images that were ortho-corrected
and terrain-corrected are adopted as scenarios. By assuming
that the surface of each high-resolution pixel is Lambertian,
the incoming illumination, osculation, multiple scattering
and outgoing radiance in the hemisphere can be simulated
based on the method described by (Wen et al., 2009). The
reflected radiation of the high-resolution pixels accumulates
in the coarse-resolution pixel to derive the actual albedo of
the coarse-resolution pixel; the difference with the upscaled
albedo in which topographic effects are not considered rep-
resents the scaling uncertainty scale. The linear regression
results that are adopted in this study are t1=0.1108, t2=
1.1501.
1.2 Validation strategy
1.2.1 Field sampling scheme
In the proposed validation framework, the primary goal of
the field campaign is to calibrate the high-resolution albedo
map. Morisette et al. (2006) describe the sampling strategy
578 Peng J J, et al.
Figure 3 An illustration of the templates and location shifts used to assess geometric processing uncertainty. The red boxes on the left represent the cov-
ered surface area of a nominal pixel in the 1-km-resolution albedo product, and the black dashed boxes indicate the actual covered area of the physical pa-
rameter.
of VALERI, in which two-stage elementary sampling units
(ESU) were positioned to capture the land-cover character-
istics within the research area. The elementary sampling
unit is referred to as an experiment site, which corresponds
to the coarse-resolution pixel scale. The second-stage sam-
pling unit is called a quadrat, which corresponds to the high-
resolution pixel scale.
Each experiment site covers at least 2×2 coarse-reso-
lution albedo pixels. This minimum size ensures that the
low-resolution pixels are completely within the experiment
area given that the maximum geometric displacement is less
than 0.5 pixels (Liang et al., 2002). Then, multiple quadrats
are positioned to capture the variability across each experi-
ment site. The number of quadrats depends on the site het-
erogeneity. It is suggested that at least one quadrat is placed
within each land-cover type in the site (Morisette et al.,
2006). Each quadrat covers at least 2×2 high-resolution
albedo pixels and multiple measurements are acquired within
a quadrat to capture the variability of the central high-reso-
lution pixel. Because the albedo changes with the solar zen-
ith angle, the sampling scheme configuration must comprise
between the sampling number and the time cost.
Sci China Earth Sci April (2015) Vol.58 No.4
1.2.2 Calibration of the high-resolution albedo
As Section 2.1.1 explained, the bias in the high-resolution
albedo values results from instrument limitations, radio-
metric calibrations, geometric mismatches, and atmospheric
corrections. Therefore, it must be calibrated with in situ
measurements. Because the number of field measurements
within a particular site is limited, to increase the stability of
the calibration, a one-parameter calibration equation is adopted.
That is, an offset is applied to the entire high-resolution
albedo map for a particular date, which is estimated using
the average difference between the blue-sky albedo ex-
tracted from the high-resolution albedo map and the in situ
albedo.
n
 ( qt (i)   hq (i))
C i 1
, (8)
n
where C is the calibration offset, qt is the averaged quadrat
albedo, hq is the high-resolution albedo that corresponds to
each quadrat, and n is the number of quadrats within the
site.
 Peng J J, et al. Sci China Earth Sci
1.2.3 Pixel uncertainty rating
When validating the coarse-resolution albedo product, it is
recommended that only pixels with small geometric mis-
matching, gm1, and scaling uncertainty, scale, be used to
judge the accuracy of the albedo product. Using the estima-
tion method introduced in Section 2.1.2, gm1 and scale are
calculated for each coarse-resolution pixel. The pixels with
a local (3×3 pixel) minimum for gm1 and scale values of less
than 3% are considered as Class B pixels. Moreover, the
pixels for each experiment site are assigned as Class A pix-
els. The remained pixels are classified as Class C pixels.
Validation using Class A pixels is similar to the traditional
direct validation method, in which the site average albedo is
compared with the coarse-resolution albedo product of the
pixel nearest to the center of the site. An alternative option
is validation with Class B pixels, in which the validation
scope is broadened to an extensive area surrounding the
experiment site. Validation with Class C pixels is not rec-
ommended due to their significant uncertainty, especially
when the nonlinearity in the albedo upscaling process has
not been addressed.
2 A case study in the Heihe River area
2.1 Study area and data description
2.1.1 Albedo products
Two global, 1 km albedo products (MCD43B3 and GLASS-
02A06) are assessed in a validation attempt. The MCD43B3
albedo product is generated using the MODLAND (MODIS
Land) research team of the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA; free download from http://reverb.
echo.nasa.gov/reverb/). The primary algorithm of this product
includes an inversion of the Ross-Thick/Li-Sparse-Recip-
rocal (RTLSR)-kernel-driven bidirectional reflectance dis-
tribution function (BRDF) model with combined MODIS/
Terra+Aqua observations over a 16-day window. This algo-
rithm derives a narrowband albedo via kernel integration
and the narrowband-to-broadband conversion (Nightingale
et al., 2008); it has a spatial resolution of 1 km and a tem-
poral resolution of 8 days.
GLASS02A06 (free download from http://glass.bnu.
edu.cn/index.html) is the first version of the global 1 km
albedo product generated by GLASS, a research project
conducted by the National High Technology Research and
Development Program of China . The product is derived
from combined MODIS/Terra+Aqua data at a 1 km spatial
resolution and an 8-day temporal resolution. The primary
algorithm includes two parts: First, the daily shortwave al-
bedo is estimated using the angular bin (AB) direct estima-
tion algorithm (Qu et al., 2013); then, the daily albedo data
are post-processed with a statistics-based temporal filtering
(STF) algorithm to fill gaps and reduce noise (Liu et al.,
2012).
April (2015) Vol.58 No.4 579
HJ-1A/B are the first two satellites of the Environment
and Disasters Monitoring Microsatellite Constellation laun-
ched by China to achieve large-area, all-weather, continuous,
and dynamic monitoring of the environment and natural
disasters (free download from http://218.247.138.121/
DSSPlatform/index.html). The HJ CCD cameras obtain
4-band images with a 30 m spatial resolution and a revisit-
ing circle of less than 2 days. Its high spatial and temporal
resolution makes it an acceptable candidate for the upscal-
ing bridge in the validation, helping to minimize the error
caused by the scale discrepancy. The HJ images were at-
mospherically corrected using the 6S radiative transfer
model with synchronously measured atmosphere parameters
that were obtained from a sun-photometer (Sun et al., 2012)
and geo-rectified based on geo-referenced SPOT images
provided by the Watershed allied telemetry experimental
research (WATER) experimental database. However, the HJ
CCD sensor has a lower signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and
fewer spectral channels than coarse-resolution sensors (e.g.,
MODIS). Therefore, the accuracy of the HJ albedo map
must be improved by calibration using in situ measurements
before the proper validation of the coarse-resolution albedo
product can be conducted.
Because the HJ CCD is incapable of providing adequate
multi-angle observations for the albedo retrieval algorithms
based on the BRDF model inversion, the AB algorithm (the
primary algorithm used to generate the GLASS albedo
product) is applied to the HJ albedo retrieval (Sun et al.,
2013). In using the AB algorithm, modifications are made
to adjust the specifications of the HJ-1A/B CCD sensor (Li
et al., 2000). The details of the AB algorithm can be found
in (Qu et al., 2013) The regression coefficients that corre-
spond to the surface reflectance values are used in this study
because the synchronously measured atmosphere parame-
ters are available and a relatively accurate atmosphere cor-
rection is expected. The HJ albedo calibrated using in situ
measurements is denoted by the CHJ albedo below.
To validate the satellite-derive albedo products, including
the MCD43B3, GLASS02A06 and HJ albedo, the black-sky
albedo and white-sky albedo are combined into the blue-sky
albedo using the measured sky-light ratio.
2.1.2 The in situ albedo
A test of this validation strategy was conducted from July to
August 2011 in the Heihe River Basin (37.7°–42.7°N,
97.1°–102.0°E), which is a typical inland river basin in
northwestern China (Li et al., 2013). The landscapes in this
area are diverse; they include mountains, forests, steppes,
oases, and the Gobi desert. Ten experimental sites were
chosen, distributed over the middle and lower reaches of the
basin. The sites contain various land cover types including
desert, oasis, sparse grassland, Gobi, and alkali, and each
one covered an area of at least 3 km×3 km. The sites are
listed in Table 1 and Figure 4. The experiment was con-
ducted for 36 days, including 13 days of measurements (one
580 Peng J J, et al. Sci China Earth Sci April (2015) Vol.58 No.4

Table 1 A list of experimental sites

Station name Station ID Location Land-cover type Measurement date Sampling scheme (Figure 6) Number of quadrats
38.764°N, July 29,
Huazhaizi HZZ_D Sparse grass a 9
100.317°E August 8, 27
38.740°N,
Dangzhai (A) DZ_D Desert July 31 b 6
100.558°E
38.841°N,
Dangzhai (B) DZ_F Farmland July 30 - 6
100.478°E
42.067°N,
Ejin Banner (A) EBA_G Gobi August 2 a 9
100.913°E
42.377°N,
Ejin Banner (B) EBB_G Gobi August 3 a 9
101.148°E
42.209°N,
Ejin Banner (C) EBC_A Alkali August 5 a 9
100.712°E
41.608°N,
Black City BC_G Gobi August 6 b 5
100.920°E
38.925°N,
Baji BJ_D Sparse grass August 9 a 9
100.260°E
38.715°N,
Heping County HPC_D Desert August 25 b 5
100.472°E
38.751°N,
Zhangye Airport AP_D Sparse grass August 22, 28 b 5
100.701°E

Figure 4 The surface albedo measurement sites in the Heihe River Basin. The left map shows the spatial distribution of the experimental sites; the photos
on the right were taken at the experimental sites covering various land-cover types.

or two sites per day); the remaining days had unsuitable site (Figure 6(a)), except for differences in the number of
observation conditions (rain or thick clouds; Figure 5). quadrats due to disparate environmental conditions across
Field measurements were collected in 3 km×3 km quad- several measurement sites (Table 1). For instance, because
rats (Q1–Q9) that were uniformly distributed within each the Dangzhai desert is more homogeneous than the other
 Peng J J, et al.
Figure 5 The weather record during the experiment.
Figure 6 Two types of sampling schemes.
measurement sites, six quadrats were observed there on July
31, 2011. Because of cloudy weather on August 25, 2011,
five quadrats were measured when clouds did not obscure
the sun (Figure 6(b)). In addition, the Dangzhai farmland
site contained several types of crops; thus, the quadrats were
divided by each crop type rather than being uniformly dis-
tributed. The area of each sampling quadrat was 60 m×60 m,
which is four times larger than a 30 m×30 m high-resolution
pixel. Four sampling points (P1–P4) were set within each
quadrat at intervals of 40 m (Figure 6) to capture the heter-
ogeneity within the quadrat.
The upwelling and downwelling radiation fluxes were
measured with Kipp and Zonen CMP6 shortwave pyranom-
eters and a CNR4 net radiometer (http://www.kippzonen.
com). These instruments were leveled for a minimum view-
ing angle before each measurement. Two CMP6 pyranome-
ters were placed in a group to measure upward/downward
radiation simultaneously. The CNR4 net radiometer ob-
tained both upward and downward radiation measurements.
Two teams sampled the quadrats simultaneously. In the
Sci China Earth Sci April (2015) Vol.58 No.4 581
(a) sampling scheme, one team sampled along the left route,
passing through four quadrats (1-4-7-8, Figure 6(a)), and
one sampled along the right route with the same workload
(3-6-9-5, Figure 6(a)). The observation process usually
lasted 3–4 h at each site, based on the satellite pass time. To
inspect the variance of the albedo during this period, a
CNR4 net radiometer was fixed at a point in Quadrat 2 to
obtain a successive record of the radiant fluxes and albedo
synchronous to the CMP6 measurements. This information
was used to evaluate the effect of the solar zenith angle on
the albedo measurements. The albedo of the experiment
sites in the desert and Gobi areas tended to vary by less than
2% throughout the observation times (usually between 10
am and 3 pm). This variation is one cause of the random
noise within in situ measurements.
The measurement at each point began approximately 20 s
after setup to enable a steady sensor reading. To diminish
possible instrumentation defects, measurements were re-
peated 6 times at each point; then, the two pyranometers
placed in a group were exchanged, and another 6 measure-
ments were recorded at the same point. Because of the co-
sine response of the sensor, the height of the albedometer
above the surface determines the footprint of the surface
albedo (Cescatti et al., 2012). In our experiment, 90% of the
measured radiation originated from a circular area with a
diameter of 7.8 m. The in situ albedo was calculated using
the ratio of upwelling and downwelling radiation. Because
the scale difference between the in situ measurements (ap-
proximately 7.8 m) and the corresponding HJ pixels (30 m)
was small, the average of the measured albedos at four
sampling points in a quadrat was calculated as the “true
albedo” of the quadrat.
2.2 Multi-scale validation results
2.2.1 In situ albedo and HJ albedo
For the corrected HJ albedo, Figure 7 presents a scatter dia-
gram of the absolute difference in the pixel-scale HJ albedo
from the quadrat-measured albedo and the relative deviation
(standard deviation divided by the average) of samples
within each quadrat. These quantities are positively corre-
lated (R2=0.7005), which indicates that inconsistencies
582 Peng J J, et al. Sci China Earth Sci
Figure 7 Correlation between the absolute error of the HJ albedo in each
quadrat and the homogeneity of the quadrat for the Huazhaizi experimental
site on August 27, 2011.
between the remote sensing retrievals and in situ measure-
ments are often associated with strong heterogeneity within
the quadrat.
2.2.2 HJ albedo and CHJ albedo
Figure 8 compares the raw HJ albedo with the in situ albedo
for each quadrat. For these comparisons, it was assumed that
the surface state would not change within 4 days when no
sudden weather changes occurred. The results show that the
HJ albedo generated from the HJ CCD images using the AB
algorithm reflects variations in the in situ albedo. Furthermore,
they indicate that a systematic bias exists between the HJ
albedo and the in situ measurements. The calibration of the
HJ albedo based on field measurements can prevent the pro-
pagation of this bias during the validation process (Figure 9).
2.2.3 Coarse-resolution albedo
For validating the coarse-resolution albedo with the up-
scaled CHJ albedo, a rating of the pixel uncertainty is con-
ducted to avoid unwanted large uncertainties (Section 1.2.3).
The comparison results from August 28, 2011 exemplify the
necessity of the pixel uncertainty rating (Figure 10).
The validation pixels are expected to be dispersive and
cover various land types. Class A pixels (Figure 10(a)) cov-
er the major land-cover types within the study area (e.g.,
desert, oasis, and sparse grass). Class B pixels are uniformly
distributed in the research area and better represent the
overall conditions of the study area. The consistency be-
tween Class B pixels and their nearby pixels is high; thus,
they are representative of the region. The pixels in Class B
are not distributed in the border region; hence, they avoid
the disturbing nearby pixels with regard to radiation and
geometric registration. In addition, Class B pixels are not
distributed in mountainous areas, which avoids the scaling
effects caused by topography.
April (2015) Vol.58 No.4
The corresponding maps of the geometric mismatching
uncertainty,  gm2 , and the scaling uncertainty,  scale , are
illustrated in Figure 10(b) and (c). These maps show that the
pixels with high  gm1 values are primarily distributed
along the borders of different land-cover types and in rug-
ged areas, whereas the pixels with high  scale values are
concentrated in the southwestern mountainous regions.
The temporal correspondence between the CHJ albedo
images and the time window of each coarse-resolution al-
bedo product is presented in Table 2. Eight matched image
groups were found. The summarized validation results for
all 8 groups are displayed in the scatterplots in Figure 11.
The three classes of coarse-resolution pixels are displayed
in different colors. Class A pixels show the highest con-
sistency between the coarse-resolution albedo and the up-
scaled CHJ albedo. The error of Class B pixels is slightly
larger than that of Class A pixels. The root mean square
error (RMSE) is 0.0216 (12.1%) for MCD43, whereas the
RMSE is 0.0185 (10.4%) for GLASS02. The biases for
MCD43 and GLASS02 are 0.0092 and 0.0127, respectively
(Table 3). Both of these products underestimate the surface
albedo in high-reflectance regions.
The RMSE and R2 of each group are displayed in Tables
4 and 5. Combined with Figure 11, the error in Class C pix-
els is significantly larger than that in Class A and Class B
pixels. A large proportion of the Class C points in Figure 11
clearly deviate from the 1:1 line; this result explains why
different levels of uncertainty affected the reference values
for the three classes. The high uncertainties among Class C
pixels enlarge the final error and lead to an underestimation
of the product’s accuracy. Therefore, the use of all the
coarse-resolution pixels in the validation is not suitable.
Class B pixels are more frequent than Class A pixels, thereby
representing many more land-cover types and comprehen-
sively evaluating the quality of the coarse-resolution albedo
products. The validation results for Class B pixels show that
the errors for MCD43B3 and GLASS02A06 are approxi-
mately 0.02 in the middle reaches of Heihe; this value is
lower than the results from a previous validation study us-
ing point observations (Tan et al., 2006; Wang et al., 2010)
but consistent with the validation results based on a scale
conversion (Lucht et al., 2000; Liang et al., 2002). The cur-
rent validation method improves upon the quantity and rep-
resentativeness of the validation pixels.
2.3 A discussion of uncertainty control in validation
The method described above is an implementation of the
multi-scale validation strategy. This method uses two ad-
vanced procedures: the calibration of a high-resolution al-
bedo map and a pixel uncertainty rating based on an uncer-
tainty analysis. The benefit of these two procedures is ana-
lyzed below.
 Peng J J, et al. Sci China Earth Sci April (2015) Vol.58 No.4 583

Figure 8 Comparisons between the HJ albedo and field measurements. Each diagram shows the sampled HJ albedo from one image and the corresponding
in situ measurements collected from one site; the date is noted at the bottom of each diagram. Quadrat 0 was measured using a CNR4, whereas the other
quadrats were measured using two CMP6.

To understand the significance of correcting the HJ al- Therefore, the error is three times greater without calibra-
bedo map using in situ measurements, we recall eq. (6). tion, and the bias uncertainty is significantly reduced using
Here, bgrd is assumed to be zero, and the root of this calibration procedure.
 grd
2
  h2   gm1
2
can be estimated using the RMSE between Figure 12 demonstrates the composition of the uncer-
tainty in the upscaled albedo of the different classes of pix-
the CHJ albedo and the measured albedo of the quadrats
els in the validation results from August 28, 2011. This fig-
(Figure 9(b)). Using the results from August 28, 2011 as an
ure shows that the calibrated uncertainty accounted for a
example,  c high is approximately 5.871×103, but this
large proportion of the total uncertainty. The other uncer-
value would have been 1.765×102 if the step of calibrating tainty elements due to Class A and Class B pixels are obvi-
the HJ albedo with the in situ measurements was skipped. ously smaller than those associated with Class C pixels.
 584
Peng J J, et al.
Sci China Earth Sci
April (2015) Vol.58 No.4

Figure 9 Illustration of error reduced by the calibration of HJ albedo. (a) The error between the HJ and surface-measured albedos; (b) the error between the calibrated HJ and surface-measured albedos.
Each CMP6 quadrat was measured with a CMP6 at four uniformly distributed points. The CNR4 quadrat was measured with a CNR4 at the fixed central point. The average error was calculated from all of
the quadrats’ measurements within a particular site. (a) shows that the average error (the dark, filled diamonds) of the HJ albedo is less than or equal to 0.0206. The corrected HJ albedo is closer to the in situ
measurements than the original HJ albedo (b).
 Peng J J, et al. Sci China Earth Sci April (2015) Vol.58 No.4 585

Table 2 The temporal correspondence of albedo images

Date of image acquisitiona)

Group
HJ GLASS02A06 MCD43B3
1 207 (July 26) 207 (199–215) 201 (201–216)
2 211 (July 30) 211 (203–219) 209 (209–224)
3 220 (August 8) 219 (211–227) 217 (217–232)
4 220 (August 8) 220 (212–228) 217 (217–232)
5 237 (August 25) 237 (229–245) 233 (233–248)
6 239 (August 27) 238 (230–246) 233 (233–248)
7 239 (August 27) 239 (231–247) 233 (233–248)
8 240 (August 28) 240 (232–248) 233 (233–248)
a) The information in parentheses represents the time range of the orig-
inal reflectance data used to derive the albedo.

Figure 11 Coarse-resolution scatterplots of the 1-km-resolution albedo

products and the upscaled CHJ albedo.

Figure 10 The distribution of Class A and Class B pixels and two main
kinds of uncertainty. (a) Class A and Class B coarse-resolution pixels dis-
played on a HJ albedo image; (b) the distribution of geometric mismatch-
ing uncertainty  gm 2 , (c) the distribution of scaling uncertainty  scale .
With regard to Class A pixels, this effect is due to the flat-
ness and uniformity of the selected measurement sites. With
regard to Class B pixels, this effect is attributed to the con-
trol of uncertainty from the pixel uncertainty rating. Clearly,
586 Peng J J, et al. Sci China Earth Sci April (2015) Vol.58 No.4

Table 3 Summary statistics of the validation for the pixels of different classes

GLASS02A06 MCD43B3
Pixel set Sample number
RMSE R2 Bias RMSE R2 Bias
Class A 64 0.0105 0.9235 0.008 0.0123 0.9294 0.0103
Class B 797 0.0185 0.7774 0.0092 0.0216 0.7582 0.0127
Class C 24675 0.0366 0.5238 0.0143 0.0397 0.4874 0.0181

Table 4 The RMSE between the coarse-resolution albedo and the corresponding upscaled CHJ albedo, calculated for three pixel classes

Class A Class B Class C

Group
GLASS02 MCD43 GLASS02 MCD43 GLASS02 MCD43
1 0.0344 0.04 0.029 0.034 0.0432 0.0451
2 0.0271 0.0319 0.0252 0.029 0.0312 0.0387
3 0.0083 0.0107 0.0097 0.0159 0.0262 0.0357
4 0.0184 0.0217 0.0144 0.0185 0.0203 0.0231
5 0.0103 0.0124 0.0107 0.0163 0.0705 0.0751
6 0.0092 0.0119 0.0098 0.0174 0.0125 0.0196
7 0.0245 0.0281 0.0237 0.0278 0.0336 0.0361
8 0.0084 0.0075 0.0139 0.019 0.017 0.0229

Table 5 The R2 between the coarse-resolution albedo and the corresponding upscaled CHJ albedo, calculated for three pixel classes

Class A Class B Class C

Scene
GLASS02 MCD43 GLASS02 MCD43 GLASS02 MCD43
1 0.962 0.9607 0.9459 0.9764 0.9182 0.9218
2 0.9588 0.9317 0.9317 0.9196 0.9089 0.8628
3 0.9567 0.9883 0.9557 0.9555 0.9266 0.9021
4 0.942 0.8914 0.9029 0.8494 08168 0.8032
5 0.9585 0.9862 0.9526 0.9655 0.8509 0.8054
6 0.9676 0.9556 0.9653 0.9057 0.9124 0.888
7 0.9512 0.9925 0.9633 0.9731 0.9269 0.9109
8 0.9987 0.9981 0.9101 0.9121 0.8819 0.8938

Figure 12 The composition of uncertainty in the upscaled 1 km HJ albe-
do. Within the uncertainty of the original HJ albedo, the shaded segment
denotes the proportion that was calibrated via comparison with the in situ
measurements; the left section was transferred to the CHJ albedo.
the proportions of  gm1 and  scale are small for both Class
A and B pixels but large for Class C pixels.
The RMSE between the coarse-resolution albedo product
and the reference albedo both contained uncertainties; thus,
the RMSE was denoted the “apparent RMSE”, which usu-
ally overestimates the error in the product. As the validation
result for the Class B pixels shows, the apparent RMSEs for
the MCD43B3 and GLASS02A06 datasets are 0.0216 and
0.0185, respectively, in which the uncertainty of the refer-
ence albedo is as large as 0.0136 (Figure 12). The uncer-
tainty associated with the reference albedo, and not the real
error of the albedo product, dominates the apparent RMSE.
When the Class C pixels are used, the RMSE increased by
0.0181 (0.0397 minus 0.0216) for the MCD43B3 and
0.0181 (0.0366 minus 0.0185) for the GLASS02A06 com-
pared with the Class B pixels. This increase in RMSE is
similar to the increase in uncertainty of 0.0131 (0.0385 mi-
nus 0.0254). This result shows that evaluating the real error
of the coarse-resolution albedo products using Class C pix-
els is impossible.
 Peng J J, et al. Sci China Earth Sci
3 Conclusions
This paper quantitatively analyzed the uncertainty in the
multi-scale validation procedure for coarse-resolution albe-
do products and proposed a strategy to reduce the uncertain-
ties within in situ measurements and high-resolution albedo.
To validate this strategy, a preliminary validation test was
conducted on two types of coarse-resolution albedo prod-
ucts, which was designed under the guidance of uncertainty
control.
The estimation of reference values is the core of validat-
ing coarse-resolution albedo products. Because the refer-
ence values for albedo are calculated indirectly, they con-
tain uncertainties derived from the data source and the vali-
dation process. Uncertainty in the reference albedo is con-
trolled by choosing proper sampling schemes, calibrating
the high-resolution albedo, rating pixels according to their
uncertainty level, and so on. These procedures minimized
the apparent RMSE of the albedo products. Nevertheless,
the apparent RMSE continues to contain some uncertainty
from the reference albedo, which future research should
address.
Using a single-point, in situ measurement to validate a
pixel is considered inappropriate by consensus when vali-
dating coarse-resolution albedo products. The only appro-
priate solution to this problem is to use multi-point, in situ
measurements or a high-resolution image to estimate refer-
ence values. However, certain problems remain to be solved
with regard to the use of these methods. The current study
combined multi-point, in situ measurements with a high-
resolution image to perform upscaling. A reasonable num-
ber of in situ measurements ensured the reliability of the
reference values, and the joining of the high-resolution im-
age enhanced the efficiency of the validation. Nevertheless,
fieldwork is expensive and laborious, which often limits
validation and encumbers the reporting of land surface
temporal variation. Emerging technologies such as wireless
sensor networks enable researchers to automatically and
continually obtain multi-point measurements and provide
efficient means to acquire more and better in situ data. With
these new technologies, this multi-scale validation strategy
might become operational in the near future.
This work was sponsored by the National Basic Research Program of
China (Grant No. 2013CB733401), the National High Technology Re-
search and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2012AA12A300)
and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos.
41273168, 41331171). The authors thank the reviewers for their construc-
tive comments and suggestions on the paper.
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