provisional quality or validated quality. Science data products based on Aqua
MODIS data will also be available after the testing and evaluation stage.
LST is one of the key parameters in the physics of land surface processes on
regional and global scales. It combines the results of all surface–atmosphere
interactions and energy fluxes between the atmosphere and the ground (Mannstein
1987, Sellers et al. 1988). The LST retrieved from satellite data may be used to
validate and improve the global meteorological model prediction after appropriate
aggregation and parameterization (Price 1982, Diak and Whipple 1993). The
remotely sensed LST has been used in land cover and land cover change analysis
(Ehrlich and Lambin 1996, Lambin and Ehrlich 1997), and in the production of the
MODIS land cover product. It has been also used in monitoring drought and
estimating surface soil moisture (Feldhake et al. 1996, McVicar and Jupp 1998),
evaluating water requirements of wheat (Jackson et al. 1977), and determining
frosts in orange groves (Caselles and Sobrino 1989).
In the following sections, we present an evaluation of the MODIS thermal
infrared (TIR) bands used for LST retrieval, a brief summary of the MODIS LST
algorithms, validation status of the MODIS LST product, new refinements and
improvements made to the operational LST code (version 4), and the major
advantages of using Terra and Aqua MODIS data for the LST product.