Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica (LIMA) - Processed Landsat Scenes (16 bit) (USGS/LIMA/SR)

The Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica (LIMA) is a seamless
and virtually cloudless mosaic created from processed
Landsat 7 ETM+ scenes.

Processed Landsat Scenes (16 bit) are Level 1Gt NLAPS
scenes converted to 16 bit, processed with sun-angle
correction, and converted to reflectance values
(Bindschadler 2008).

Each Landsat scene is processed with elevation
data and sun-angle correction to ensure surface features
were accurately represented. The sun’s angle in Antarctica
gives the appearance of a setting sun. Because of the low
sun angle, as Landsat passes over Antarctica, the outer
edges of the continent appear brighter than areas closer
to the South Pole, so scenes have bright and dark areas.
Inconsistent sun angles and shadows where corrected for
these scenes. Without this process, mosaicking would produce
a patchwork of scenes since each scene would have a brighter
and a darker side.

Users can find individual image metadata available as a table at:
USGS/LIMA/SR_METADATA