The Impact of Seasonality and Land Cover on the Consistency of Relationship between Air Temperature and LST Derived from Landsat 7 and MODIS at a Local Scale: A Case Study in Southern Ontario

Michael Burnett and Dongmei Chen
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Michael Burnett: Department of Geography and Planning, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON K7L 3N6, Canada
Dongmei Chen: Department of Geography and Planning, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON K7L 3N6, Canada

Land, 2021, vol. 10, issue 7, 1-14

Abstract: Land surface temperature (LST) and air temperature (T air ) have been commonly used to analyze urban heat island (UHI) effects throughout the world, with noted variations based on vegetation distribution. This research has compared time series LST data acquired from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) platforms, Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM+) and T air from weather stations in the Southern Ontario area. The influence of the spatial resolution, land cover, vegetated surfaces, and seasonality on the relationship between LST and in situ T air were examined. The objective is to identify spatial and seasonal differences amongst these different spatial resolution LST products and T air , along with the causes for variations at a localized scale. Results show that MODIS LST from Terra had stronger relationships with Landsat 7 LST than those from Aqua. T air demonstrated weaker correlations with Landsat LST than with MODIS LST in sparsely vegetated and urban areas during the summer. Due to the winter’s ability to smooth heterogenous surfaces, both LST and T air showed stronger relationships in winter than summer over every land cover, except with coarse spatial resolutions on forested surfaces.

Keywords: land surface temperature; Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper; MODIS; air temperature; Southern Ontario; land cover; seasonality; scale (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:10:y:2021:i:7:p:672-:d:582765

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