Comparison of in-situ, aircraft, and satellite land surface temperature measurements over a NOAA Climate Reference Network site

Land surface temperature (LST) is a key variable for studying the energy and water vapor exchange at the biosphere–atmosphere interface. In an effort to better quantify the spatial variability and overall representativeness of single-point LST measurements being recorded at NOAA's Climate Reference Network (CRN) sites and to improve the accuracy of satellite LST measurements, airborne flight campaigns were conducted over a CRN site in Crossville, Tennessee, USA during 2010 to 2011. Multiple measurements of LST were made using infrared temperature sensors at micrometeorological tower sites and onboard an instrumented Piper Navajo airborne research aircraft. In addition to this, coincident LST products from the moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) instruments (Collection 5), onboard NASA Terra and Aqua Earth Observing System satellites were used. In this paper the comparison of LST measurements made from multiple platforms are presented. Our study showed that the temporal and spatial variability of surface temperature as indicated by the standard deviation of the brightness temperature (Tb) during the flight periods were