Effect of Temporal Sampling Interval on the Irradiance for Moon-Based Wide Field-of-View Radiometer

Moon-based Earth radiation observation can provide longer-term, continuous multi-angle measurements for the Earth’s outward radiative flux. In addition, the large distance between the Moon and Earth means that the radiation can be monitored by a non-scanning Moon-based Wide Field-of-View (MWFOV) radiometer considering the Earth as one pixel. In order to parameterize the radiometer, studying the effect of the temporal sampling interval on irradiance is of great importance. In this work, based on radiation transfer model, simulated irradiance time series from March 2000 to December 2020 were analyzed. Then, we used them to reveal the effects of the sampling interval on irradiance. The results show that the measurements of the MWFOV radiometer can reveal the variation of irradiance on hourly, daily and monthly time scales, and the high-frequency measurements can reflect the variation of scene types in the MWFOV-viewed area. In order to obtain more meaningful measurements, the radiation resolution of the MWFOV radiometer should be better than 0.5 mW∙m(−2) with an accuracy of 1% or better in the future actual design, and the sampling interval should be less than 1 h, which can ensure that 97% of the surface area can be sampled more than nine times per day for longwave radiation. The derived results in this study could facilitate Moon-based data processing and the determination of the sampling interval and radiation resolution of an MWFOV under a certain manufacturing cost and error limit.