Articles | Volume 20, issue 8
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-20-3263-2016
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-20-3263-2016
Research article
 | 
11 Aug 2016
Research article |  | 11 Aug 2016

Cloud tolerance of remote-sensing technologies to measure land surface temperature

Thomas R. H. Holmes, Christopher R. Hain, Martha C. Anderson, and Wade T. Crow

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Status: closed
Status: closed
AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment
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Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision
ED: Reconsider after major revisions (27 Jun 2016) by Alexander Loew (deceased)
AR by Thomas Holmes on behalf of the Authors (01 Jul 2016)  Author's response    Manuscript
ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (12 Jul 2016) by Alexander Loew (deceased)
RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (12 Jul 2016)
ED: Publish as is (21 Jul 2016) by Alexander Loew (deceased)
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Short summary
We test the cloud tolerance of two technologies to estimate land surface temperature (LST) from space: microwave (MW) and thermal infrared (TIR). Although TIR has slightly lower errors than MW with ground data under clear-sky conditions, it suffers increasing negative bias as cloud cover increases. In contrast, we find no direct impact of clouds on the accuracy and bias of MW-LST. MW-LST can therefore be used to improve TIR cloud screening and increase sampling in clouded regions.