Vol. 6, No. 1, 38-46, 2007

Estimation of daily mean air temperature from MODIS LST in Alpine areas
Angelo Colombi, Carlo De Michele, Monica Pepe and Anna Rampini

Abstract
This study is aimed at demonstrating the feasibility of the MODIS Land Surface Temperature (LST) product as a source for calculating spatially distributed daily mean air temperature to be used as input for hydrological or environmental models. The test area is located in the Italian Alpine area. The proposed procedure solves, by empirical approaches, the problem of relating LST to the Air Temperature (Tair) and instantaneous Tair values to daily mean values, exploiting ground data weather station measurements as a reference. The relationship between LST and Tair is determined by correlation analysis and equation generalisation for spatial distribution. The extrapolation of daily mean values of Tair from instantaneous values is addressed again by correlation analyses taking into account the altitude variability and exploiting historical series. Validation was accomplished by accuracy assessment procedures both punctual and spatially distributed, the latter performed by comparison with the Inverse Distance Weighting (IDW) interpolation method.

The proposed methodology produced satisfactory results as related to the objective: The daily mean air temperatures derived by LST showing an overall RMSE of 1.89°C, and slightly outperforms the interpolation method used as comparison.

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History
Submitted: 19 Oct 2006
Revised: 13 Feb 2007
Accepted: 20 Feb 2007
Published: 07 May 2007
Responsible editor: Robin Vaughan

Citation
Colombi A, C De Michele, M Pepe & A Rampini, 2007. Estimation of daily mean air temperature from MODIS LST in Alpine areas. EARSeL eProceedings, 6(1): 38-46

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EARSeL European Association of Remote Sensing Laboratories, Strasbourg, France

   
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BIS Library and Information System, Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg

 

ISSN 1729-3782