Estimation of Daily Air Temperature Based on MODIS Land Surface Temperature Products over the Corn Belt in the US

Remote Sensing

Linglin Zeng⁵  Brian D. Wardlow⁶  Tsegaye Tadesse¹  Jie Shan³  Michael J. Hayes¹  Deren Li⁵  Daxiang Xiang²  Janet Nichol⁴ 

[1] National Drought Mitigation Center, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 3310 Holdrege St, Lincoln, NE 68583, USA; E-Mails:;Changjiang River Scientific Research Institute, Changjiang River Water Resources Commission, Huangpu Street No. 23, Wuhan 430010, China; E-Mail:;School of Civil Engineering, Purdue University, 550 Stadium Mall Drive, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA; E-Mail:;State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing, Wuhan University, Luoyu Road No. 129, Wuhan 430079, China; E-Mail;State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing, Wuhan University, Luoyu Road No. 129, Wuhan 430079, China; E-Mail:;Center for Advanced Land Management Information Technologies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 3310 Holdrege St, Lincoln, NE 68583, USA; E-Mail:

关键词: air temperature;    land surface temperature;    remote sensing;    MODIS;   

DOI  :  10.3390/rs70100951

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Air temperature (Ta) is a key input in a wide range of agroclimatic applications. Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Ts (Land Surface Temperature (LST)) products are widely used to estimate daily Ta. However, only daytime LST (Ts-day) or nighttime LST (Ts-night) data have been used to estimate Tmax/Tmin (daily maximum or minimum air temperature), respectively. The relationship between Tmax and Ts-night, and the one between Tmin and Ts-day has not been studied. In this study, both the ability of Ts-night data to estimate Tmax and the ability of Ts-day data to estimate Tmin were tested and studied in the Corn Belt during the growing season (May–September) from 2008 to 2012, using MODIS daily LST products from both Terra and Aqua. The results show that using Ts-night for estimating Tmax could result in a higher accuracy than using Ts-day for a similar estimate. Combining Ts-day and Ts-night, the estimation of Tmax was improved by 0.19–1.85, 0.37–1.12 and 0.26–0.93 °C for crops, deciduous forest and developed areas, respectively, when compared with using only Ts-day or Ts-night data. The main factors influencing the Ta estimation errors spatially and temporally were analyzed and discussed, such as satellite overpassing time, air masses, irrigation, etc.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2015 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.