Contact: Jean-Luc Widlowski and Bernard Pinty
The RAMI initiative is a community-driven exercise to benchmark the models of radiation transfer used to represent the reflectance of terestrial surfaces (in particular vegetation canopies). The overall objectives of this exercise include (1) to progressively develop a community consensus on the best ways to simulate the transfer of radiation at and near the Earth's surface (2) to inform the user community on the performance of the various models available (3) to provide a rationale for the acquisition and thus interpretation of more and better data from space remote sensing and, last but not least (4) to help developers improve their models. RAMI was launched in 1999, with its second phase being held in 2002. Currently the third phase of RAMI is scheduled to open in early 2005.
References:
- Pinty, B., N. Gobron, J.-L. Widlowski , S. A. W. Gerstl, M. M. Verstraete, M. Antunes, C. Bacour, F. Gascon, J.-P. Gastellu, N. Goel, S. Jacquemoud, P. North, W. Qin, and R. Thompson (2001) 'Radiation Transfer Model Intercomparison (RAMI) Exercise', /Journal of Geophysical Research/, *106*, 11,937-11,956.
- Pinty, B., J-L. Widlowski, M. Taberner, N. Gobron, M. M. Verstraete, M. Disney, F. Gascon, J.-P. Gastellu, L. Jiang, A. Kuusk, P. Lewis, X. Li, W. Ni-Meister, T. Nilson, P. North, W. Qin, L. Su, S. Tang, R. Thompson, W. Verhoef, H. Wang, J. Wang, G. Yan, and H. Zang (2004) 'RAdiation transfer Model Intercomparison (RAMI) exercise: Results from the second phase', /Journal of Geophysical Research/, *109*, D06210 10.1029/2003JD004252.