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Land Surface Temperature

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  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Remote Sensing

Part of the book series: Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series ((EESS))

Definition

Land surface temperature (LST). Average temperature of an element of the exact surface of the Earth calculated from measured radiance (for a complete definition, see Norman and Becker, 1995).

Blackbody. An ideal material absorbing all incident energy or emitting all thermal energy possible. A cavity with a pinhole aperture approximates a blackbody.

Color temperature. Temperature satisfying Planck’s law for spectral radiances measured at two different wavelengths: for a gray body (this entry), for any emitter, or the blackbody temperature for which visual color is the same as some other source (e.g., in photography).

Emissivityε. The efficiency with which a surface radiates its thermal energy.

Irradiance. The power incident on a unit area, integrated over all directions (Wm−2).

Longwave infrared (LWIR). For most terrestrial surfaces (~340– ~ 240 K) peak thermal emittance occurs at LWIR (~8–14 μm).

Mid-infrared (MIR). Forest fires (~1,000–600 K) have peak thermal emittances...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Washington, 4000 15th Avenue NE, 98195, Seattle, WA, USA

    Alan Gillespie

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  1. Alan Gillespie
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Correspondence to Alan Gillespie .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA

    Eni G. Njoku

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Gillespie, A. (2014). Land Surface Temperature. In: Njoku, E.G. (eds) Encyclopedia of Remote Sensing. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-36699-9_79

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