Publications

Sheng, YL; Liu, XP; Yang, XC; Xin, QC; Deng, CB; Li, X (2017). Quantifying the spatial and temporal relationship between air and land surface temperatures of different land-cover types in Southeastern China. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF REMOTE SENSING, 38(4), 1114-1136.

Abstract
Near surface air temperature (T-a) is an important variable utilized for various fields of research such as agriculture, epidemic forecasting, and climate change. It is usually obtained from a limited number of weather stations that are unevenly distributed within a region. Thus, the spatial information of T-a is rarely provided especially in complex topographical and underdeveloped regions. To compensate for this shortcoming, T-a can be estimated by using the land surface temperature (T-s) from satellite data because remote sensing has an advantage of describing the spatial heterogeneity over a large geographical area. In previous research, authors focused on analysing the effect of limited factors on T-a observations by using a small number of weather stations. However, this study explores a thorough sensitivity analysis of several factors on the relationship between T-a (obtained from a dense network of automatic weather stations) and T-s of different land-cover types using statistical analysis. This article discovered the relationships between T-a and T-s. First, comparisons between daytime and night-time Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) T-s data with T-a data showed that a better agreement was achieved during the night than the day. Second, when comparing the results of different land-cover types, the correlation coefficient of the vegetated area was higher than that of water and impervious surface. Third, a comparison of statistical results for different seasons indicated that the correlation between T-a and T-s was weakest in a hot season. Fourth, altitude seemed to have no significant effect on the T-a-T-s relationship. Finally, the relationship between T-a and T-s strengthened with increasing window size except for the vegetated area but tended to saturate as the T-s window increased to the optimal size. These results will be helpful for building an appropriate model to derive air temperature directly from the remotely sensed data in the future.

DOI:
10.1080/01431161.2017.1280629

ISSN:
0143-1161