Retrieving and Assessing Land Surface Temperature

from ASTER Data

Guijun Yang Yuechan Shi* Renli Wang
Beijing Research Center for Geomatics College Geomatics College
Information Technology in Shandong University of Science and Shandong University of Science and
Agriculture Technolog Technolog
Beijing，100097，China Qingdao， 266510，China Qingdao， 266510，China
Email:guijun.yang@163.com Email:shiyuechan1987@163.com

Abstract—Land surface temperature (LST) is a key parameter in
ecological and farm environment studies. The study area is
located in Zhangye of Gansu province, mainly was covered by
crops and desert. To retrieve LST from ASTER thermal infrared
(TIR), split window algorithm was used. Surface emissivity and
atmospheric transmittance was estimated previously. To evaluate
the estimated result, the ASTER and MODIS LST production
was collected and compared in both visual method and spatial
distributions of LST profiles derived from typical transects. The
maps showed that the general distribution tendency of ASTER
LST was consistent with MODIS LST data and corresponded to
the NDVI image in an inverse fashion. To gain an insight into the
negative relationship between LST and NDVI, empirical statistics
was conducted and the results showed that there was a strong
negative relationship between LST and NDVI (R2=0.508).
Further, the mean temperature and standard deviation of each
land cover types for two standard LST productions and LST
estimated in our method were collected to make a comparison.
For the three LST data, the sequence of temperature values for
land use/land cover (LULC) from high to low was same: sand,
desert, impervious, vegetation and water. However, ASTER LST
retrieval in our method was lower than the other two LST data.
It may be caused by the estimated parameters or the coarse
resolution of MODIS. In our study, a relative comparison
approach was adopted to verify the result, which proved LST
images retrieved from only two ASTER thermal channels using
our developed algorithms were reliable and easily realized.
Key words- land surface temperature (LST), ASTER, surface
emissivity, atmospheric transmittance
I. INTRODUCTION
Land surface temperature (LST) is a key parameter in
ecological and farm environment studies, such as monitoring
drought, detecting coal fire, analyzing urbanization effect and
estimating energy fluxes [1-3]. Many efforts have made to the
retrieval of LST from thermal images [4-5] [9]. Based on split-
window method for multi-band images, LST was retrieved
from ASTER thermal infrared (TIR) channels 13 (10.25-
10.95μm) and 14 (10.95-11.65μm). In this process, two key
parameters: atmospheric transmittance and surface emissivity
have been estimated previously. Atmospheric transmittance
was estimated with the assistance of MODIS atmospheric
profile data. As characteristic of terrestrial materials, surface
emissivity was estimated using fractional vegetation cover
based on a rough classification. To verify the ASTER LST
estimated in our method, the simultaneous ASTER LST
production and MODIS LST production were collected and
evaluated the result in visual or statistical form. Moreover, the
relationship between LST data and NDVI was explored as
previous study [6-8].
II. STUDY AREA AND DATA SETS
A. Study area
Zhangye located in northwest of Gansu province, China
(100°12′- 100°32′E，38°44′- 38°57′N ) was chosen as the
study area. The study area covered an area of 307km2 with an
elevation of 1000-2000 m. Zhangye city situated in middle of
the Heihe River Basin and its southwest border relies on
Qilian Mountain. With a temperate continental climate, yearly
mean air temperature is 6℃ and annual precipitation is 140
mm. The representative land use/land cover (LULC) types in the
study area typically consist of vegetation, desert, sand, water,
mountain meadow and impervious (building and road) (Fig.1). It
was noted that Yingke Oasis lies in our study area and
accounted for 40% of our study area. As a typical agricultural
station, annual winter wheat or summer maize were main
crops. Wheat was usually seeded at the beginning of April and
harvested in the middle of July. Summer maize was usually
seeded at the middle of June and harvested in the beginning of
October. The cropping system is surrounded by desert and
sand, which occupies almost 40% of our study area.
B. Data sets
The remote sensing imagery from ASTER and MODIS
sensors onboard NASA’s TERRA satellite were acquired on
June 4, 2008 covering the experimental area. ASTER level 1B
data, surface reflectance (AST_07) and surface kinetic
temperature (AST_08) products were acquired, which were
produced from the Temperature and Emissivity Separation
(TES) algorithm. MODIS02_QKM, MODIS02_HKM,
MODIS02_1KM, MOD03_L1A and MODIS11_L2 were
downloaded from the Land Processes Distributed Active
Archive Center (LP DAAC) of USA Geological Survey
(USGS). MODIS02 datasets provide Level-1B calibrated and
georeferenced at-aperture radiances 250m, 500m and 1km
resolutions, which can provide the visual interpretation and
used in the calculation of the Water vapor content.
MOD03_L1A products offered geographical coordinate
information. MODIS11_L2 LST with 1km resolution was
retrieved by the generalized split-window algorithm. In our
study, the MODIS images were first geometrically corrected
using the MODIS Reprojection Tool (MRT) or swath MRT
and were projected to UTM coordinates (WGS84 datum).
Then, the MODIS data were registered to ASTER level 1B
TIR data using the control points with a subpixel accuracy
(<15 m).
III. METHODOLOGY
A. Split Window algorithm (SWA) for retrieving LST from
ASTER data
According to the split window algorithm [5] [9], the key
parameters must be estimated from ASTER data, including
atmospheric transmittance and the surface emissivity.
1) Estimation of the atmospheric transmittance
Many efforts have been made in the simulation of the
relationship between atmospheric transmittance and water
vapor content (ω) using the atmospheric model software (such
as 6S, MODTRAN, LODTRAN). Once the water content was
measured, the atmospheric transmittance can be estimated.
Kaufman and Gao [10] put forward a method to compute water
vapor content using the band 2 and 19 of MODIS data.
ω = [(α-ln(ρ19/ρ2)/ β)]2 (1)
Where, α =0.02, β =0.651, ρ2 and ρ19 are reflectance at sensor
of band 2 and 19 of MODIS data.
Pu et al [11] used MODTRAN4 to simulate the linear
relationships between the atmospheric transmittance ( τ ) and
water vapor content for Middle-latitude-north summer.
Atmospheric transmittance can be estimated from the MODIS
data based on the following equation (0.2g/cm2<ω<1.6 g/cm2)
and then disaggregated to 90m resolution.
τ13 =-0.071551⋅ w + 0.962772( R 2 = 0.986) (2)
τ14 = −0.091837 ⋅ w + 0.986703( R 2 = 0.989)
2) Estimation of the surface emissivity
Surface emissivity is closely related to material property.
Figure1. Land use/land cover map
In our study, it was estimated based on classification and
coverage [12]. Due to the reason of the article length, we don’t
show the details of the method here.
3) Estimation of the land surface temperature
According to previous studies [5][9], the relationship
between radiance B (T) and temperature T should be linearized
based on the Planck's radiance function in ASTER 13 and 14
channels.
B13 (T ) = 0.146162 ⋅ T − 33.824610( R 2 = 0.993);
(3)
B14 (T ) = 0.132836 ⋅ T − 30.219316( R 2 = 0.995);
According to radiative transfer model, the land surface
temperature can be achieved [9]:
A13Ts = B13 − C13Ta + D13 ; A14Ts = B14 − C14Ta + D14 (4)
Ai = ai ⋅ ε i ⋅τ i
Bi = ai ⋅ Ti + bi ⋅ ε i ⋅τ i − bi
Ci = (1 − τ i ) ⋅ [1 + (1 − ε i ) ⋅τ i ] ⋅ ai
Di = (1 − τ i ) ⋅ [1 + (1 − ε i ) ⋅τ i ] ⋅ bi
[C14 ⋅ ( B13 + D13 ) − C13 ⋅ ( B14 + D14 )]
Ts = (5)
(C14 ⋅ A13 − C13 ⋅ A14 )
Where, i indicates TIR 13 or 14 channel; ε indicates surface
emissivity; ai, bi indicates the parameters values for simulated
relationship of 13 and 14channels respectably (Eq.2); Ai, B i, C
i and D i means the parameters for Eq.5.
B. Classifications for land cover
To analyze LST distribution in the angle of land cover
types, a classification of major land use/land cover (LULC)
with the support vector machines (SVM) was conducted, using
three visible and NIR of ASTER with 15m resolution and then
aggregated to 90m. The study area was classified into six
types, namely: vegetation, sand, desert, forest meadow, water
and impervious (building and roads) (Fig.1). As a supervised
classification, a certain number of training samples for each
land cover type were selected. We chose the radial basis
function (RBF) as SVM kernel function and Gamma
coefficient and penalty coefficient were set to 10 and 100,
respectively. The vegetation and desert mostly accounted for
41% of the image, respectively. The mountain meadow took
up 12.2% and the sand does 4.7%. The percentage of the
impervious and water is 1% and 0.1%.
IV. RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
A. Visual examination and comparison
Fig.2 showed ASTER LST product, MODIS LST product
and ASTER LST estimated in our method covering the
experiment station. The red area indicated the higher
temperature while the blue one did the lower temperature
(Fig.2 a-c). In general,the spatial distribution of ASTER LST
in our method was consistent with ASTER LST product.
Compared with land classification image (Fig.1), the
temperature of the vegetation and meadow covered area was
much lower than that of the desert and sand especially the
sand (Fig.2 a, c, B). Focusing on vegetation area (Fig.2 a, c,
A), it was indicated that the temperature was non-uniform
with cross-distribution of the blue and yellow area. This
phenomenon was related to coverage, which can be observed
in the NDVI image (Fig.3). It was because winter wheat and

(a)

L1
A
Figure 3.The NDVI map of ASTER data
B

(b)

L1

Figure 4.The relationship between LST estimated in our method and NDVI

summer maize is in different growing season namely winter

wheat was in the grain filling stage while the maize was just
seeded. However, ASTER LST product was smoother than
that estimated in our method, because the ASTER LST
product was generated using TES algorithm from 5 TIR
channels while we only made use of two TIR bands. Zhu et al
[13]
indicated that cross-noise of channels could decrease
(c) accuracy of split window algorithm. The general distribution
tendency of MODIS LST was consistent with both ASTER
L1 LST maps. However, it performed poorer in some details
information owing to a course resolution (1km).
A
Fig.3 showed the spatial distribution of NDVI. The image
B was calculated using band 2 and 3 of ASTER data wit 15m
resolution and then aggregated to 90m. The green indicated a
bigger NDVI value while the red represented a low value. To
insight into the relationship between LST and NDVI, we
analyzed the correlation between the LST image estimated in
our method and NDVI in different land cover. The land types
contained vegetation, meadow, impervious, desert and sand
while the water was not considered. From Fig.4, we found that
Figure 2.ASTER LST product (a), MODIS LST product (b) and ASTER LST LST was strong negative correlated to NDVI with R2 over
estimated in our method (c) 0.508. Different land cover types had obvious boundary in
LST-NDVI two-dimensional space. The NDVI value of the
 LST between them might be caused by subpixel registration
error and calibration difference of the two sensor systems.

TABLE 1 MEAN AND STANDARD DEVIATION OF LAND SURFACE

TEMPERATURE (K) OF EACH LULC
LULC ASTER LST ASTER LST MODIS LST
Production Retrieval Production
Mean Stdev. Mean Stdev. Mean Stdev.

Vegetation 313.74 5.78 310.73 6.034 312.95 4.07

Desert 323.76 3.49 321.62 4.36 320.57 3.74

Sand 327.89 6.80 330.01 5.76 323.98 2.88

Water 305.27 6.55 305.34 7.70 312.30 3.93

Impervious 314.20 8.23 312.42 6.47 314.23 3.77

All data 318.45 7.13 316.09 8.15 316.59 5.59

C. Statistical analysis for land cover types

Figure5. The profile for four LST data: ASTER LST product, ASTER LST
estimated in our method, MODIS LST product and ASTER LST degraded to
990m. (a) along the whole L1 profile in Fig.2 (b) profile from 300 to 400
steps.
vegetation and meadow was relatively higher while the LST
value was lower. This phenomenon was reasonable in contrary
to actual situation. The sand and desert had a higher LST
especially the sand than other types (Fig.2). The regression
line crosses the middle position of all land types. However,
NDVI values of the vegetation and meadow was significant
changes owing to their different crop growing condition and
land coverage. For example, the wheat was mature but maize
just seeded. Moreover, bare soil played an important role in
vegetation and impervious area.
B. Profile analysis of LST data
The profile analysis was direct viewing, which was popular in
the LST image analysis [14]. Fig.5 showed LST profiles of
ASTER LST product, ASTER LST estimated in our method,
MODIS LST product and ASTER LST degraded to 990m.
Fig.5 (a) presents the variations of four LST images along the
whole L1 profile (Fig. 2) while Fig.5 (b) behaved a part of the
profile from 300 to 400 steps. The result showed that the four
profiles displayed a mostly uniform tendency. Compared to
ASTER LST with 90m spatial resolution, the dynamic range
of MODIS LST was smaller because of its course resolution.
Further explanation of this point, the ASTER LST was
degraded to 990m and compared to the trend of MODIS LST.
In Fig.5 (b), the profiles can show more details. The two
profiles of ASTER LST with 990m resolution and MODIS
LST had similar variable amplitude. The slight difference of
Table 1 listed the mean and standard deviation for 5 land
cover types in three types land temperature data: ASTER LST
production, ASTER LST retrieval in our method and MODIS
LST. The vegetation contained the crops and mountain
meadow. For the three LST data, the sequence of temperature
values for 5 land cover types from high to low was same:
sand, desert, impervious, vegetation and water. Most type’s
temperature retrieval in our method is lower than the two
standard LST productions except for sand. It may be caused
by the emissivity value which was too low for sand area
(making the estimated LST high). ASTER LST retrieval in our
method was 2-4K lower than ASTER LST production and 2-
7K lower than MODIS LST. It may be caused by the coarse
resolution of MODIS and the serious mixed pixel. For
example the water, MODIS LST was much higher than the
two ASTER LST data. In a word, ASTER LST retrieval in our
method maintained a high level of consistency, so our method
was reasonable.
V. CONCLUSION
The land surface temperature covering Zhangye area was
estimated using split window algorithm only form ASTER
TIR 13 and 14 channels. The 90m resolution ASTER data was
category details. The ASTER LST and MODIS LST
production were used to verify the result in visual
examination, profiles analysis and statistics for each land
cover type. The ASTER LST distribution estimated in our
method was similar to ASTER LST and MODIS LST
production. Similar results had been reported that it had strong
negative correlation between ASTER LST estimated in our
method and NDVI. Moreover, we analyzed the mean and
standard deviation for 5 land cover types for three LST data.
The result indicated that the three LST data was mostly
consistent.
Acknowledgment
This study was supported by the Chinese State Key Basic
Research Project (2011CB311806), the Beijing Municipal Natural
Science Foundation (4102021), the Natural Science Foundation
of China (40901173, 41071228) and the Open Funds of State Key
Laboratory of Remote Sensing Science, jointly sponsored by the
Institute of Remote Sensing Applications of Chinese Academy of
Sciences and Beijing Normal University (OFSLRSS201109).
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