Evaluation of MODIS Land products for air temperature estimations in Colombia

The moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) land-surface temperature/emissivity (LST) product is often used for studies in meteorology due to its ability for near realtime evaluations. Colombia, as a country requires a prospective management for its productive ecosystems, but currently does not have sufficient spatially-distributed field data for air temperature at 2-m above the ground. The traditional validation of MODIS products includes field campaigns for calibrating and measuring differences between the satellite sensor and radiometers. For this research, the LST data on the ground was compared with climatologic stations using multiple regression techniques for improving the accuracy of the LST from MODIS, using MOD09GA, MOD17A2, MOD15A2, MOD13A2 as ancillary parameters (explanatory variables) in the final model. The ground measurements were obtained in the Caribbean zone and the Casanare and Valle del Cauca departments in Colombia, using agroclimatic stations in the first dry season of 2007 and daily MODIS data. Enhanced vegetation index, fraction of photosynthetically active radiation, and net photosynthesis were included in the final model for explaining the vegetation as a key parameter for air temperature. Finally, two factors were proposed for LST estimation: sensor zenith angle and solar zenith angle due to the reflectance of the vegetation and sensitivity of the sensor.