Abstract
Estimation of large-scale land surface temperature from satellite images is of great importance for the study of climate change. This is especially true for the most challenging areas, such as the Tibetan Plateau (TP). In this paper, two split window algorithms (SWAs), one for the NOAA’s Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR), and the other for the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), were applied to retrieve land surface temperature (LST) over the TP simultaneously. AVHRR and MODIS data from 17 January, 14 April, 23 July, and 16 October 2003 were selected as the cases for winter, spring, summer, and autumn, respectively. Firstly, two key parameters (emissivity and water vapor content) were calculated at the pixel scale. Then, the derived LST was compared with in situ measurements from the Coordinated Enhanced Observing Period (CEOP) Asia-Australia Monsoon Project (CAMP) on the TP (CAMP/Tibet) area. They were in good accordance with each other, with an average percentage error (PE) of 10.5% for AVHRR data and 8.3% for MODIS data, meaning the adopted SWAs were applicable in the TP area. The derived LST also showed a wide range and a clear seasonal difference. The results from AVHRR were also in agreement with MODIS, with the latter usually displaying a higher level of accuracy.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Becker, F., and Z. L. Li, 1990: Towards a local split window method over land surface. Int. J. Remote Sens., 11, 369–393.
Becker, F. and Z. L. Li, 1995: Surface temperature and emissivity at various scales: definition, measurement and related problems. Remote. Sens. Rev., 12, 225–253.
Carlson, T. N., and D. A. Ripley, 1997: On the relation between NDVI, fractional vegetation cover and leaf area index. Remote Sens. Environ., 62, 241–252.
Coll, C. and V. Caselles, 1997: A split-window algorithm for land surface temperature from advanced very high resolution radiometer data: Validation and algorithm comparison. J. Geophys. Res., 102, 16697–16713.
Coll, C., V. Caselles, J. A. Sobrino, and E. Valor, 1994: On the atmospheric dependence of the split-window equation for land surface temperature. Int. J. Remote Sens., 15, 105–122.
Cracknell, A. P., 1997: The Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR). Taylor and Francis, 534pp.
Ding, M., Y. Zhang, Z. Shen, L. Liu, W. Zhang, Z. Wang, W. Bai, and D. Zheng, 2006: Land cover change along the Qinghai-Tibet Highway and Railway from 1981 to 2001. Journal of Geographical Sciences, 16, 387–395.
França, G. B., and A. P. Cracknell, 1994: Retrieval of land and sea surface temperature using NOAA-11 AVHRR data in northeastern Brazil. Int. J. Remote Sens., 15, 1695–1712.
François, C. and C. Ottlé, 1996: Atmospheric corrections in the thermal infrared: Global and water vapor dependent split-window algorithm-applications to ATSR and AVHRR data. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens., 34, 457–469.
Kaufman, Y. J., and G. B. Cai, 1992: Remote sensing of water vapor in the near IR from EOS/MODIS. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens., 5, 871–884.
Kerr, Y. H., J. P. Lagouarade, and J. Imbernon, 1992: Accurate land surface temperature retrieval from AVHRR data with use of an improved split window algorithm. Remote Sens. Environ., 41, 197–209.
Koike, T., T. Yasunari, J. Wang, and T. Yao, 1999: GAME-Tibet IOP summary report. Proc. First International Workshop on GAME-Tibet, Xi’an, China, 1–2.
Ma, Y., and O. Tsukaoto, 2002: Combining Satellite Remote Sensing with Field Observations for Land Surface Heat Fluxes over Inhomogeneous Landscape. China Meteorological Press, 172pp.
Ma, Y., L. Zhong, Z. Su, H. Ishikawa, M. Menenti, and T. Koike, 2006: Determination of regional distributions and seasonal variations of land surface heat fluxes from Landsat-7 Ehanced Thematic Mapper data over the central Tibetan Plateau area. J. Geophys. Res., 111, doi: 10.1029/2005JD006742.
Ma, Y., and Coauthors, 2003: Regionalization of surface fluxes over heterogeneous landscape of the Tibetan Plateau by using satellite remote sensing data. J. Meteor. Soc. Japan, 81, 277–293.
Mao, K., Z. Qin, J. Shi, and P. Gong, 2005a: A practical split-window algorithm for retrieving landsurface temperature from MODIS data. Int. J. Remote Sens., 26, 3181–3204.
Mao, K., Z. Qin, J. Shi, and P. GONG, 2005b: The research of Split-Window Algorithm on the MODIS. Geomatics and Information Science of Wuhan University, 30, 703–707. (in Chinese)
McMillin, L. M., 1975: Estimation of sea surface temperature from two infrared window measurements with different absorption. J. Geophys. Res., 36, 5113–5117.
Oku, Y., and H. Ishikawa, 2004: Estimation of land surface temperature over the Tibetan Plateau using GMS data. J. Appl. Meteor., 43, 548–561.
Ottlé, C., and D. Vidal-Madjar, 1992: Estimation of land surface temperature with NOAA-9 Data. Remote Sens. Environ., 40, 27–41.
Prata, A. J., 1993: Land surface temperature derived from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer and the Along-Track Scanning Radiometer 1. Theory. J. Geophys. Res., 98, 16689–16702.
Prata, A. J., and M. Platt, 1991: Land surface temperature measurements from the AVHRR. Proc. 5th AVHRR data Users’ Meeting, Tromso (NORWAY), EUMETSAT, Darmstadt, 433–438.
Price, J. C., 1984: Land surface temperature measurements from the split window channels of the NOAA 7 Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer. J. Geophys. Res., 89, 7231–7237.
Qin, Z., and A. Karnieli, 1999: Progress in the remote sensing of land surface temperature and ground emissivity using NOAA-AVHRR data. Int. J. Remote Sens., 20, 2367–2393.
Qin, Z., G. D. Olmo, and A. Karnieli, 2001: Derivation of split window algorithm and its sensitivity analysis for retrieving land surface temperature from NOAA-advanced very high resolution radiometer data. J. Geophys. Res., 106, 22655–22670.
Qiu, J., 2008: The third pole. Nature, 454, 393–396.
Sobrino, J. A., V. Caselles, and F. Becker, 1990: Significance of the remotely sensed thermal infrared measurements obtained over a citrus orchard. ISPRS Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing, 44, 343–354.
Sobrino, J. A., C. Coll, and V. Caselles, 1991: Atmospheric correction for land surface temperature using NOAA-11AVHRR channels 4 and 5. Remote Sens. Environ., 38, 19–34.
Sobrino, J. A., Z. L. Li, M. P. Stoll, and F. Becker, 1994: Improvements in the split-window technique for land surface temperature determination. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens., 32, 243–253.
Sobrino, J. A., N. Raissouni, J. Simarro, F. Nerry, and F. Petitcolin, 1999: Atmospheric water vapor content over land surface derived from the AVHRR data: application to the Iberian Peninsula. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens., 37, 1425–1434.
Sobrino, J. A. and N. Raissouni, 2000: Toward Remote Sensing methods for land cover dynamic monitoring: application to Morocco. Int. J. Remote Sens., 21, 353–366.
Univieri, C., M. M. C. Castronuovo, R. Francionis, and A. Cardillo, 1992: A split-window algorithm for estimating and surface temperatures from satellites. COSPAR, Committee On Space Programs and Research, Washington, D. C.
Ulivieri, C., M. M. C. Castronuovo, R. Francioni, and A. Cardillo, 1994: A split-window algorithm for estimating land surface temperature from satellites. Adv. Space Res., 14, 59–65.
Vidal, A., 1991: Atmospheric and emissivity correction of land surface temperature measured from satellite using ground measurements or satellite data. Int. J. Remote Sens., 12, 2449–2460.
Yang, H., and Z. Yang, 2006: A modified land surface temperature split window retrieval algorithm and its applications over China. Global and Planetary Change, 52, 207–215.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Zhong, L., Ma, Y., Su, Z. et al. Estimation of land surface temperature over the Tibetan Plateau using AVHRR and MODIS data. Adv. Atmos. Sci. 27, 1110–1118 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00376-009-9133-0
Received:
Revised:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00376-009-9133-0