Land surface temperature representativeness in a heterogeneous area through a distributed energy-water balance model and remote sensing data

Abstract. Land surface temperature is the link between soil-vegetation-atmosphere fluxes and soil water content through the energy water balance. This paper analyses the representativeness of land surface temperature (LST) for a distributed hydrological water balance model (FEST-EWB) using LST from AHS (airborne hyperspectral scanner), with a spatial resolution between 2–4 m, LST from MODIS, with a spatial resolution of 1000 m, and thermal infrared radiometric ground measurements that are compared with the representative equilibrium temperature that closes the energy balance equation in the distributed hydrological model.

Diurnal and nocturnal images are analyzed due to the non stable behaviour of the thermodynamic temperature and to the non linear effects induced by spatial heterogeneity.

Spatial autocorrelation and scale of fluctuation of land surface temperature from FEST-EWB and AHS are analysed at different aggregation areas to better understand the scale of representativeness of land surface temperature in a hydrological process.

The study site is the agricultural area of Barrax (Spain) that is a heterogeneous area with a patchwork of irrigated and non irrigated vegetated fields and bare soil. The used data set was collected during a field campaign from 10 to 15 July 2005 in the framework of the SEN2FLEX project.