Land Surface Temperature (LST) and Emissivity

Relationship to Global Change Issues

The surface temperature of the land and ocean is a parameter which determines the vigor of biogeochemical activity and the rate of heat flow and water transport between the surface and the atmosphere. These in turn influence global environmental processes.

On land, soil and canopy temperature are among the main determinants of the rate of growth of vegetation and they govern seasonal starting and termination of growth. Hydrologic processes such as evapotranspiration and snow and ice melt are highly sensitive to surface temperature fluctuation. In addition, surface temperature has been shown to be an important discriminating factor in classification of land surface types which supports the global land cover type product. For the oceans, the surface temperature influences the rate of growth of phytoplankton, the rate of absorption of carbon dioxide and other gases by sea water, and the rate of flow of heat to and from the atmosphere. Thus, temperature products are key inputs to many of the EOS product algorithms as well as providing data for global temperature mapping and change observation.

Product Overview

The MODIS land surface temperature product (MOD_11) provides the needed composite temperature of each pixel and the estimated emissivity from database information plus adjustments made possible by the multiwindow algorithm. The accuracy is better than 1K for materials with known emissivities.

Assimilated ground temperature from the GEOS DAS (DAS_35) will provide 3-hour estimates combining MODIS ground temperature information with pressure, temperature, wind, and moisture observations.

Read the technical description of this product (ATBD) atbd_mod11.pdf (Adobe Acrobat PDF Format)

Land Surface Temperature (LST) and Emissivity PI Website
http://www.icess.ucsb.edu/modis/modis-lst.html

MODIS Land End User (Level 3) Products for Land Surface Temperature (LST) and Emissivity