This set of experiments was suggested to compare the radiative flux properties, i.e., the canopy reflectance (R), absorption (A) and transmission (T), of structurally homogeneous leaf canopies. The overall architecture of these test cases is reminiscent of grasslands (where the blades are oriented preferably along the vertical). A total of 72 test cases are proposed. Various canopy density, soil brightness and illumination conditions are given both for the visible (VIS) (400-700nm) and near infra-red (NIR) (700-3000nm) spectral ranges. Whether you are using Look-Up-Tables, analytical radiative transfer formulations, or some other form of parameterisation to prescribe/simulate the radiative flux values for these test cases, please stick as closely as possible to the structural, spectral and illumination conditions provided below (in some look-up-table based approaches this may mean that the same estimates will be submitted for different test cases). Since all required RAMI4PILPS measurements consist of flux ratios, the actual magnitude of the incident irradiance is irrelevant.

RAMI4PILPS represents its 'grasslands' as 1D canopies that are composed of a 'cloud' of dimensionless scatterers representing the foliage. In order to avoid hotspot-related issues - i.e., the influence of enhanced backscattering along the retro-reflection direction - it is strongly recommended to treat the foliage as a turbid medium (i.e., made up of infinitesimally small oriented scatterers) in any radiative transfer models/modules. This foliage is distributed uniformly between the background level and the top of the canopy at a height of 1m. The foliage consists of non-dimensional scatterers characterized by

1. their specified radiative properties (reflectance, transmittance and the directionality of the scattering events), and
2. the orientation of the normals of the scatterers which adhere to an erectophile distribution function - see definitions).

A simple Lambertian scattering law describes the directionality of all scattering events (irrespective of whether they occur with the foliage elements or with the background surface. Apart from the completely absorbing (black soil) scenario, the particular values selected for these input variables represented typical plant and soil conditions within the visible and near-infrared spectral domains.

The following graphical representation aims at giving an idea of how such scenes may look like:

Overall three different foliage densities are proposed: sparse (LAI=1), medium (LAI=2) and dense (LAI=4). For each of these structural scenarios, three different soil brightnesses (black, medium ,snow) and four illumination conditions (direct illumination only at 27, 60 and 83 degree zenith, as well as isotropic diffuse illumination) are specified both for the visible and near-infrared spectral domain. The leaf spectral properties, orientation, size and scattering properties remain identical for each one of the spectral domains. This allows to execute all tests proposed on this page as a batch job using a script, for example, with the following loops:

for LAI in LAI_LIST do

for BAND in BAND_LIST do

for SOIL in SOIL_LIST do

for ILLUMINATION in ILLUMINATION_LIST do

RUN_MY_MODEL_WITH LAI BAND SOIL ILLUMINATION STRUCTURE

endfor (ILLUMINATION)

endfor (SOIL)

endfor (BAND)

endfor (LAI)

where LAI_LIST stands for the canopy structural properties (LAI=0.5, 1.5 and 2.5), BAND_LIST stands for the visible (VIS) or near-infrared (NIR) spectral domain (which in turn will determine the leaf reflectance and transmittance in these domains), SOIL_LIST determines the soil brightness values of the background (black, medium, snow) at each one of the spectral domains, and ILLUMINATION_LIST prescribes the illumination conditions (SZA=27, 60 and 83 degrees, and diffuse isotropic). Last but not least STRUCTURE relates to the structural properties of the canopy (e.g., canopy height, leaf orientation, leaf scattering law, etc.) and remains the same for all 72 test cases.

The following table provides an overview of the variables that change for the various test cases proposed in the grassland category. Individual experiment identifier tags are used to label these test cases e.g., GRA100_MED_ERE_VIS_27. They are needed in the naming of the various measurement results files (see file naming and formatting conventions). You may use the links provided in the table to directly access the detailed descriptions of certain sets of test cases.