Although lake surface water temperature (LSWT) is defined as an essential climate variable (ECV) within the global climate observing system (GCOS), current satellite-based retrieval techniques do not fulfill the GCOS accuracy requirements. The split-window (SW) retrieval method is well-established, and the split-window coefficients (SWC) are the key elements of its accuracy. Performances of SW ...

Simulated data showed that cirrus clouds could lead to a maximum land surface temperature (LST) retrieval error of 11.0 K when using the generalized split-window (GSW) algorithm with a cirrus optical depth (COD) at 0.55 μm of 0.4 and in nadir view. A correction term in the COD linear function was added to the GSW algorithm to extend the GSW algorithm to cirrus cloudy conditions. The COD was acq...

This paper provides an overview of, and rationale for, the definition of a multi-channel Land Surface Temperature (LST) data product from the AATSR. Land surface temperature (LST) is an extremely important parameter that controls the exchange of longwave radiation between the surface and atmosphere. Because of the extreme heterogeneity of most natural land surfaces, LST is a difficult parameter...