Publications

Krishnan, Praveena; Kochendorfer, John; Dumas, Edward J.; Guillevic, Pierre C.; Baker, C. Bruce; Meyers, Tilden P.; Martos, Borja (2015). Comparison of in-situ, aircraft, and satellite land surface temperature measurements over a NOAA Climate Reference Network site. REMOTE SENSING OF ENVIRONMENT, 165, 249-264.

Abstract
Land surface temperature (LST) is a key variable for studying the energy and water vapor exchange at the biosphere-atmosphere interface. In an effort to better quantify the spatial variability and overall representativeness of single-point LST measurements being recorded at NOAA's Climate Reference Network (CRN) sites and to improve the accuracy of satellite LST measurements, airborne flight campaigns were conducted over a CRN site in Crossville, Tennessee, USA during 2010 to 2011. Multiple measurements of LST were made using infrared temperature sensors at micrometeorological tower sites and onboard an instrumented Piper Navajo airborne research aircraft. In addition to this, coincident LST products from the moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) instruments (Collection 5), onboard NASA Terra and Aqua Earth Observing System satellites were used. In this paper the comparison of LST measurements made from multiple platforms are presented. Our study showed that the temporal and spatial variability of surface temperature as indicated by the standard deviation of the brightness temperature (T-b) during the flight periods were <1.7 degrees C. Aircraft and tower-based T-b during the flight periods agreed well with a root mean square error (RMSE) of <1.3 degrees C. The daytime MODIS LST was lower than the tower and aircraft-based LST, but higher than the daytime near surface air temperature (T-a). MODIS LST showed a positive and lower bias with the nighttime tower-based LST, but with slightly higher RMSE than the daytime dataset The MODIS LST showed better correlation with the tower-based LST than T-a during clear sky conditions due to the complex relationship between air and surface temperature. Including both day and nighttime data the MODIS LST showed a bias of -056 degrees C, RMSE of 2.84 degrees C, and standard deviations of the difference of 2.79 degrees C when compared to the mean tower-based LST at the site. Tower-based 11 explained 98% of the variance in LST during nighttime conditions with a bias of similar to 0.8 degrees C and RMSE of 0.86 degrees C. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

DOI:
10.1016/j.rse.2015.05.011

ISSN:
0034-4257