Sensitivity analysis and validation of daytime and nighttime land surface temperature retrievals from landsat 8 using different algorithms and emissivity models

Abstract

Land Surface Temperature (LST) is a substantial element indicating the relationship between the atmosphere and the land. This study aims to examine the efficiency of different LST algorithms, namely, Single Channel Algorithm (SCA), Mono Window Algorithm (MWA), and Radiative Transfer Equation (RTE), using both daytime and nighttime Landsat 8 data and in-situ measurements. Although many researchers conducted validation studies of daytime LST retrieved from Landsat 8 data, none of them considered nighttime LST retrieval and validation because of the lack of Land Surface Emissivity (LSE) data in the nighttime. Thus, in this paper, we propose using a daytime LSE image, whose acquisition is close to nighttime Thermal Infrared (TIR) data (the difference ranges from one day to four days), as an input in the algorithm for the nighttime LST retrieval. In addition to evaluating the three LST methods, we also investigated the effect of six Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI)-based LSE models in this study. Furthermore, sensitivity analyses were carried out for both in-situ measurements and LST methods for satellite data. Simultaneous ground-based LST measurements were collected from Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) and Surface Radiation Budget Network (SURFRAD) stations, located at different rural environments of the United States. Concerning the in-situ sensitivity results, the effect on LST of the uncertainty of the downwelling and upwelling radiance was almost identical in daytime and nighttime. Instead, the uncertainty effect of the broadband emissivity in the nighttime was half of the daytime. Concerning the satellite observations, the sensitivity of the LST methods to LSE proved that the variation of the LST error was smaller than daytime. The accuracy of the LST retrieval methods for daytime Landsat 8 data varied between 2.17 K Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) and 5.47 K RMSE considering all LST methods and LSE models. MWA with two different LSE models presented the best results for the daytime. Concerning the nighttime accuracy of the LST retrieval, the RMSE value ranged from 0.94 K to 3.34 K. SCA showed the best results, butMWA and RTE also provided very high accuracy. Compared to daytime, all LST retrieval methods applied to nighttime data provided highly accurate results with the different LSE models and a lower bias with respect to in-situ measurements.