Science Source

Meteosat Land Surface Temperature Climate Data Record: Achievable Accuracy and Potential Uncertainties

States that long-term LST climate data records with a high temporal and spatial resolution are useful for climate monitoring and climate applications
States the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites’ (EUMETSAT) Meteosat satellites provide the unique opportunity to compile a 30+ year land surface temperature (LST) climate data record
Compares the performance of two single-channel LST retrieval algorithms: (1) A physical radiative transfer-based mono-window (PMW); and (2) a statistical mono-window model (SMW)
Assesses the performance of the single-channel algorithms using a database of synthetic radiances for a wide range of atmospheric profiles and surface variables
Evaluates the two single-channel algorithms against the commonly-used generalized split-window (GSW) model
States the three algorithms are verified against more than 60,000 LST ground observations with dry to very moist atmospheres (total column water vapor (TCWV) 1–56 mm)
Finds that except for very moist atmospheres (TCWV > 45 mm), results show that Meteosat single-channel retrievals match those of the GSW algorithm by 0.1–0.5 K
Outlines that it is possible to put realistic uncertainties on Meteosat single-channel LSTs, except for very moist atmospheres: simulated theoretical uncertainties are within 0.3–1.0 K of the in situ root mean square differences for TCWV < 45 mm