A C++ program for retrieving land surface temperature from the data of Landsat TM/ETM+ band6

A C++ language-based software tool for retrieving land surface temperature (LST) from the data of Landsat TM/ ETM+ band6 is developed. It has two main functional modules: (1) Three methods to compute the ground emissivity based on land use/cover classification image, NDVI image and the ratio values of vegetation and bare ground and (2) Converting digital numbers (DNs) from TM/ETM+ band6 to LST. In the software tool, Qin et al.’s mono-window algorithm and Jiménez-Muňoz and Sobrino’s single channel algorithm are programmed to retrieve LST. It will be a useful software tool to study the thermal environment of ground surface or the energy balance between the ground and the bottom atmosphere by using the thermal band of Landsat TM/ETM+. r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.