First results towards building up a reliable in situ measurements database for LST algorithm validations using modular WSN: Northern Morocco campaigns case study

Abstract

Climate has changed throughout the 4.5 million year history of the globe. At the same time, natural and human activities are affected directly by the global change of Earth system attributes, such as increase in temperature. Land surface temperature (LST) is an important but highly variable climate parameter. Its spatial distribution and the characteristic of its diurnal change over wide areas can only be determined with remote-sensing methods. The power of wireless sensor network (WSN) technology has provided the capability of developing large-scale systems for remote-sensing algorithm and sensor validation.

This article presents a new method (sensitivity ∼0.1°C) for in situ LST measurements. The results of wide in situ LST campaigns carried out during 2009 in four distant and different sites located in northern Morocco are shown: (1) Kasr-Seghir, (2) Targha, (3) Tangier, and (4) Chefchaouen. For this purpose, we used two calibrated radiometers with thermal infrared bands, OSM101 and TESTO845. Finally, during these campaigns, a total of 28,531 measurements were made with the proposed wireless-LST (Wi-LST) system. The preliminary results show a wide variability of the measurements, which is in total accordance with the heterogeneity of the targets' nature. This is encouraging for we are interested in building up a reliable and consistent standard in situ LST measurements database for LST algorithm validations.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the Morocco Ministry for Higher Education, Management Training and Scientific Research under CSPT Grants for “Ad hoc wireless sensor network validations for remote sensing algorithms” and “Integration and application of GIS and GPS on mobile systems” projects. We are thankful to the anonymous referees.