ENVISAT/AATSR derived land surface temperature over a heterogeneous region

In this paper a method for evaluating land surface temperature (LST) algorithms over heterogeneous areas is presented. The evaluation was made for a set of 12 algorithms derived by using the split-window (SW) and dual-angle (DA) techniques for estimating sea and land surface temperature (SST and LST) from Advanced Along-Track Scanning Radiometer (AATSR) data. A validation of the proposed algorithms was carried out over a heterogeneous region of Morocco in the framework of the WATERMED (WATer use Efficiency in natural vegetation and agricultural areas by Remote sensing in the MEDiterranean basin) project. AATSR data and in situ measurements over this heterogenous region were compared by implementing a classification based strategy over a higher spatial resolution Landsat image. Three reference classes were considered when performing the classification from the Landsat image. Ground based measurements where then used to assign an effective surface radiometric temperature to each of these three classes. Finally, an averaging procedure based on class proportion was implemented for deriving surface radiometric temperature at the AATSR pixel scale. For this heterogeneous site, the results showed that LST can be obtained with a root mean-square error (RMSE) lower than 1.7 K from the split-window algorithms. Dual-angle algorithms, on the other hand, provided greater RMSE due to the different surfaces observed in the nadir and forward views. The results suggest that to retrieve LST from 1 km pixels over heterogeneous surfaces spatial averaging is required to improve accuracy on temperature estimation.