Validation of the land-surface temperature products retrieved from Terra Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer data

This paper presents the status of land-surface temperature (LST) standard products retrieved from Earth Observing System (EOS) Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data. Based on estimates of the channel-dependence error and noise equivalent temperature difference (NEDT) and the calibration accuracy of MODIS thermal–infrared data, the impact of instrument performance on the accuracy of LST is discussed. A double-screen scheme based on the difference between the 5-km LST retrieved by the day/night LST algorithm and the aggregated 1-km LST retrieved by the generalized split-window algorithm, and the difference between daytime and nighttime LSTs, is proposed to remove the LSTs contaminated with cloud effects. The accuracy of daily MODIS LST product at 1-km resolution, which was produced by the generalized split-window algorithm, was validated in 11 clear-sky cases with in situ measurement data collected in field campaigns in 2000 and 2001. The MODIS LST accuracy is better than 1 K in the range from 263 to 300 K over Lak