Cloudy land surface temperature retrieval from three-channel microwave data. Issue 5 (19th March 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Han, Xiao-Jing; Duan, Si-Bo; Huang, Cheng; Li, Zhao-Liang
• Is Part Of: International journal of remote sensing. Volume 40:Issue 5/6(2019)
• Page Start: 1793
• Page End: 1807
• Publication Date: 2019-03-19
• Subjects: Land surface temperature -- surface emissivity -- cloudy -- passive microwave -- AMSR-E; Remote sensing -- Periodicals; Télédétection -- Périodiques; 621.3678
• DOI: 10.1080/01431161.2018.1471552
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0143-1161

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Land surface temperature (LST) plays an important role in land surface processes, and it is a key input for estimating important hydrological states and fluxes, such as soil moisture and evapotranspiration. In this study, a three-channel method is proposed to retrieve cloudy LST values from passive microwave data based on the relationship among surface emissivities at 18.70, 36.50, and 89.00 GHz over a bare soil surface. The performance of the method was evaluated using simulated data, resulting in a root mean square error (RMSE) of approximately 1.4 K over the bare soil surface. This method was further extended to retrieve cloudy LST values over a natural surface. Due to the lack of in situ LST measurements, ground-based air temperatures were used as proxy data to validate the cloudy LST values retrieved from AMSR-E data. The RMSE values of the differences between the retrieved cloudy LST values and the ground-based air temperatures are approximately 3.4 K and 4.3 K for the descending and ascending overpasses, respectively. The results demonstrate that the three-channel method can be used to retrieve cloudy LST values from passive microwave data with reasonable accuracy.