Identification

Title

How can we use MODIS land surface temperature to validate long-term urban model simulations?

Abstract

High spatial resolution urban climate modeling is essential for understanding urban climatology and predicting the human health impacts under climate change. Satellite thermal remote-sensing data are potential observational sources for urban climate model validation with comparable spatial scales, temporal consistency, broad coverage, and long-term archives. However, sensor view angle, cloud distribution, and cloud-contaminated pixels can confound comparisons between satellite land surface temperature (LST) and modeled surface radiometric temperature. The impacts of sensor view angles on urban LST values are investigated and addressed. Three methods to minimize the confounding factors of clouds are proposed and evaluated using 10years of Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data and simulations from the High-Resolution Land Data Assimilation System (HRLDAS) over Greater Houston, Texas, U.S. For the satellite cloud mask (SCM) method, prior to comparison, the cloud mask for each MODIS scene is applied to its concurrent HRLDAS simulation. For the max/min temperature (MMT) method, the 50 warmest days and coolest nights for each data set are selected and compared to avoid cloud impacts. For the high clear-sky fraction (HCF) method, only those MODIS scenes that have a high percentage of clear-sky pixels are compared. The SCM method is recommended for validation of long-term simulations because it provides the largest sample size as well as temporal consistency with the simulations. The MMT method is best for comparison at the extremes. And the HCF method gives the best absolute temperature comparison due to the spatial and temporal consistency between simulations and observations.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7d50nxj

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2014-03-27T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact