Remote Sensing of Environment 225 (2019) 16–29

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Remote Sensing of Environment

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/rse

Validation of Collection 6 MODIS land surface temperature product using in T

situ measurements
⁎
Si-Bo Duana, Zhao-Liang Lib,a, , Hua Lic, Frank-M. Göttsched, Hua Wue, Wei Zhaof, Pei Lenga,
Xia Zhangb, César Collg
a
Key Laboratory of Agricultural Remote Sensing, Ministry of Agriculture/Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning, Chinese Academy of Agricultural
Sciences, Beijing 100081, China
b
School of Land Resources and Urban-rural Planning, Hebei GEO University, 050031, Hebei, China
c
State Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing Science, Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
d
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Hermann-von-Helmholtz-Platz 1, 76344 Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany
e
State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environment Information System, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences,
Beijing 100101, China
f
Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu 610041, China
g
Department of Earth Physics and Thermodynamics, Faculty of Physics, University of Valencia, 46100 Burjassot, Spain

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Land surface temperature (LST) is an important physical quantity at the land-atmosphere interface. Since 2016
Land surface temperature the Collection 6 (C6) MODIS LST product is publicly available, which includes three refinements over bare soil
MODIS surfaces compared to the Collection 5 (C5) MODIS LST product. To encourage the use of the C6 MODIS LST
Temperature-based validation method product in a wide range of applications, it is necessary to evaluate the accuracy of the C6 MODIS LST product. In
Split-window algorithm
this study, we validated the C6 MODIS LST product using temperature-based method over various land cover
In situ measurements
types, including grasslands, croplands, cropland/natural vegetation mosaic, open shrublands, woody savannas,
and barren/sparsely vegetated. In situ measurements were collected from various sites under different atmo-
spheric and surface conditions, including seven SURFRAD sites (BND, TBL, DRA, FPK, GCM, PSU, and SXF) in the
United States, three KIT sites (EVO, KAL, and GBB) in Portugal and Namibia, and three HiWATER sites (GBZ,
HZZ, and HMZ) in China. The spatial representativeness of the in situ measurements at each site was separately
evaluated during daytime and nighttime using all available clear-sky ASTER LST products at 90 m spatial re-
solution. Only six sites during daytime are selected as sufficiently homogeneous sites despite the usually high
spatial thermal heterogeneity, whereas during nighttime most sites can be considered to be thermally homo-
geneous and have similar LST and air temperature. The C6 MODIS LST product was validated using in situ
measurements from the selected homogeneous sites during daytime and nighttime: except for the GBB site, large
RMSE values (> 2 K) were obtained during daytime. However, if only satellite LST with a high spatial thermal
homogeneity on the MODIS pixel scale are used for LST validation, the best daytime accuracy (RMSE < 1.3 K)
for the C6 MODIS LST product is achieved over the BND and DRA sites. Except for the DRA site, the RMSE values
during nighttime are < 2 K at the selected homogeneous sites. Furthermore, the accuracy of the C6 MODIS LST
product was compared with that of the C5 MODIS LST product during nighttime at the selected homogeneous
sites. Except for the GBB site, there are only small differences (< 0.4 K) between the RMSE values for the C5 and
C6 MODIS LST products.

1. Introduction
Land surface temperature (LST) is an important climate variable
related to surface energy and water balance (Li et al., 2013b). It is also a
key physical parameter for various studies, including hydrology, cli-
matology, the environment, and ecology (Anderson et al., 2008; Duan
et al., 2014, 2017a; Sandholt et al., 2002; Weng, 2009; Sobrino and
Jiménez-Muñoz, 2014; Sobrino et al., 2016). Satellite-derived LST was
widely used in a variety of applications, including land cover and land-
cover change analysis (Lambin and Ehrlich, 1997), estimation and
parameterization of surface fluxes (Lu et al., 2013), climate change
studies (Hansen et al., 2010), vegetation monitoring (Kogan, 2001),

⁎
Corresponding author at: School of Land Resources and Urban-rural Planning, Hebei GEO University, 050031, Hebei, China.
E-mail address: lizhaoliang@caas.cn (Z.-L. Li).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2019.02.020
Received 15 September 2018; Received in revised form 19 February 2019; Accepted 22 February 2019
0034-4257/ © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
S.-B. Duan, et al.
urban climate studies (Voogt and Oke, 2003), and drought monitoring
and surface soil moisture estimation (Wan et al., 2004a; Leng et al.,
2014; Zhao et al., 2017a, 2017b). LST has been identified as an im-
portant Earth Surface Data Record (ESDR) by NASA. Furthermore, LST
has been accepted and defined as an Environmental Climate Variable
(ECV) by the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS).
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)
sensor is one of the key instruments on the Terra and Aqua platforms of
the NASA Earth Observing System. The Aqua MODIS can provide ob-
servational overlap and continuity in conjunction with the Advanced
Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) onboard the NOAA's op-
erational polar-orbiting satellites and the Visible Infrared Imaging
Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) onboard the Suomi National Polar-Orbiting
Partnership (S-NPP) satellite. Two LST retrieval algorithms for MODIS
are currently operational: the generalized split-window (GSW) algo-
rithm (Becker and Li, 1990; Wan and Dozier, 1996), which generates
the MOD11A LST product at 1-km resolution, and the physics-based
day/night algorithm (Wan and Li, 1997), which generates the MOD11B
LST product at 5-km (Collection 4, C4) and 6-km (Collection 5, C5)
resolutions.
The C4 and C5 MODIS LST products were validated using tem-
perature-based (T-based) and radiance-based (R-based) methods over
various sites, including bare soil, grassland, silt playa, cropland, and
inland water (Wan et al., 2002, 2004b; Wan and Li, 2008; Wan, 2008,
2014; Coll et al., 2005, 2009). The results indicated that the accuracy of
the MODIS LST product was better than 1 K at most sites, with the
exception of bare soil sites. The C5 MODIS LST product over arid and
semi-arid areas was reported to significantly underestimate LST, which
can be mainly attributed to the overestimation of surface emissivity
with the classification-based emissivity method (Hulley and Hook,
2009). Li et al. (2014a) and Yu et al. (2014) evaluated the C5 MODIS
LST product using ground-based measurements in a northern arid area
of China with root mean square error (RMSE) values larger than 3 K. Liu
et al. (2015) validated the C5 MODIS LST product using in situ LST over
a desert site in Gobabeb, Namibia, with an RMSE value of 3.5 K.
The C6 MOD11 products are publicly available to the user com-
munity since 2016. Assessing the accuracy of these LST products will
help encourage their use across a wide range of applications. The main
objective of this study is, therefore, to validate the C6 MOD11 products
with in situ measurements over various land cover types, including
grasslands, croplands, cropland/natural vegetation mosaic, open
shrublands, woody savannas, and barren/sparsely vegetated. The rest
of this paper is organized as follows: Sections 2 and 3 introduce the
MODIS GSW algorithms and validation sites, respectively, Section 4
describes the used methodologies, and Sections 5 and 6 present and
discuss the validation results. The last section provides some conclu-
sions.
2. MODIS GSW algorithms and refinements
The MODIS level-2 LST product (MOD11_L2 for Terra and
MYD11_L2 for Aqua) was retrieved with the GSW algorithm from
brightness temperatures in MODIS bands 31 and 32 (Becker and Li,
1990; Wan and Dozier, 1996). The GSW algorithm is written as:
1−ε Δε T + T32
Ts = b0 + ⎛b1 + b2 + b3 2 ⎞ 31
⎝ ε ε ⎠ 2
1−ε Δε T31 − T32
+ ⎛b4 + b5 + b6 2 ⎞
⎝ ε ε ⎠ 2 (1)
where Ts is the LST, and ε and Δε are the mean and the difference of the
emissivities in bands 31 and 32, respectively. The regression coeffi-
cients bk (k = 0–6) depend on the viewing zenith angle (VZA), surface
air temperature (Ta), and atmospheric column water vapor (CWV).
These coefficients were derived from regression analysis of radiative
transfer simulation data for LST values varying from Ta-16 K to
17
Remote Sensing of Environment 225 (2019) 16–29
Ta + 16 K.
To improve the accuracy of the MODIS LST product, three refine-
ments of the C6 MODIS GSW algorithm over bare soil surfaces were
introduced (Wan, 2014): 1) separate sets of coefficients for retrieving
daytime and nighttime LST over bare soil surfaces in the hot and warm
bare soil zone (latitude range: −38° to 49.5°). The C5 GSW algorithm
only uses one set of coefficients to retrieve daytime and nighttime LST
for each group of land cover types. 2) Emissivity differences in MODIS
bands 31 and 32 over bare soil surfaces were adjusted. 3) A term
containing the quadratic difference between brightness temperatures in
bands 31 and 32 was added to the original GSW algorithm to improve
LST retrieval accuracy over bare soil surfaces in the hot and warm bare
soil zone. The refined MODIS GSW algorithm is expressed as:
1−ε Δε T + T32
Ts = b0 + ⎛b1 + b2 + b3 2 ⎞ 31
⎝ ε ε ⎠ 2
1−ε Δε T31 − T32
+ ⎛b4 + b5 + b6 2 ⎞ + b7 (T31 − T32 )2
⎝ ε ε ⎠ 2 (2)
Of the three refinements the emissivity adjustment is considered to
be most important. Taking into account that the GSW algorithm is more
sensitive to changes in the difference between MODIS emissivities in
bands 31 and 32 than to changes in their mean (Li and Becker, 1993),
Wan (2014) only adjusted emissivity differences for bare soil pixels and
kept the corresponding emissivity mean constant. The emissivity ad-
justment model was developed by comparing actual brightness tem-
perature differences between MODIS bands 31 and 32 with simulated
brightness temperature differences, which were estimated from column
water vapor and surface air temperature; then the corresponding
emissivity in band 31 was adjusted with a value between ± 0.0063 and
the same amount, but with opposite sign, was added to band 32
emissivity. A detailed description of the emissivity adjustment model
can be found in Wan (2014).
The MODIS LST product during the period of 2013–2014 was
downloaded from the EARTHDATA website (https://search.earthdata.
nasa.gov/). The MODIS Reprojection Tool (MRTSwath) was used to
transform the MOD11_L2 and MYD11_L2 product from HDF-EOS swath
format to geographic latitude and longitude and the science data set
layers LST, LSE, and quality control (QC) were extracted.
3. Validation sites
3.1. SURFRAD sites
The Surface Radiation Budget Network (SURFRAD) was established
in 1993 with a primary objective of supporting climate research with
accurate, continuous, long-term measurements of the surface radiation
budget over the United States (Augustine et al., 2000). Seven SURFRAD
sites operating in climatologically diverse regions and representing
various land cover types were selected in this study. Fig. 1 shows
photographs of the seven SURFRAD sites, and Table 1 provides specific
details of the seven sites. The SURFRAD stations provide quality-con-
trolled measurements of broadband hemispherical upwelling and
downwelling longwave radiation along with meteorological parameters
every 3 min (before 2009) or every minute (after 2009). Upwelling and
downwelling longwave radiation is measured from 10 m height by two
pyrgeometers (Eppley Precision Infrared Radiometer, spectral range
3–50 μm) with an estimated uncertainty of ± 5 W/m2. The spatial re-
solution of the pyrgeometer measurements is approximately
70 × 70 m2 (Guillevic et al., 2014). The SURFRAD measurements are
established reference datasets for long-term LST validation (Li et al.,
2014b) and have been used to evaluate various satellite-derived LST
product, e.g., ASTER (Wang and Liang, 2009), AATSR (Ghent et al.,
2017), MODIS (Li et al., 2014b; Wang and Liang, 2009), and VIIRS
(Guillevic et al., 2014; Liu et al., 2015).
The surface broadband emissivity at the SURFRAD sites was
S.-B. Duan, et al. Remote Sensing of Environment 225 (2019) 16–29

BND TBL DRA

FPK GCM PSU

SXF

Fig. 1. The seven SURFRAD sites.

(Source: NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory).

estimated from ASTER emissivity product using a spectral-to-broad-
band linear regression equation (Cheng et al., 2013):
εb = 0.197 + 0.025ε10 + 0.057ε11 + 0.237ε12 + 0.333ε13 + 0.146ε14
where ε10–ε14 are the narrow-band surface emissivities of the ASTER
bands 10–14, respectively. The surface broadband emissivities are
0.968, 0.972, 0.967, 0.973, 0.971, 0.970, and 0.970 for BND, TBL, DRA,
FPK, GCM, PSU, and SXF, respectively.
3.2. KIT sites
In situ measurements from three permanent LST validation stations,
(3) i.e., EVO (Evora), KAL (Farm Heimat), and GBB (Gobabeb) operated by
the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT, Germany) were used to
validate the MODIS LST product. Fig. 2 shows photographs of the three
KIT sites and Table 1 provides specific details of the three sites.
EVO LST validation station is located approximately 12 km south-
west of the town of Evora in the Alentejo region of Portugal. The
dominant vegetation types at the station are isolated groups of ever-
green oak trees and grassland (Kabsch et al., 2008; Trigo et al., 2008).

Table 1
Details of the validation sites used in this study.
No. Site IDa Latitude Longitude Elevation Land cover type

1 BND 40.0516° N 88.3733° W 230 m Croplands

2 TBL 40.1256° N 105.2378° W 1689 m Grasslands
3 DRA 36.6232° N 116.0196° W 1007 m Open shrublands
4 FPK 48.3080° N 105.1018° W 634 m Grasslands
5 GCM 34.2547° N 89.8729° W 98 m Cropland/natural vegetation mosaic
6 PSU 40.7203° N 77.9310° W 376 m Cropland/natural vegetation mosaic
7 SXF 43.7343° N 96.6233° W 473 m Croplands
8 EVO 38.5403° N 8.00328° W 227 m Woody savannas
9 KAL 22.9328° S 17.9922° E 1380 m Open shrublands
10 GBB 23.5510° S 15.0514° E 421 m Barren/sparsely vegetated
11 GBZ 38.9150° N 100.3042° E 1567 m Barren/sparsely vegetated
12 HZZ 38.7652° N 100.3186° E 175 m Barren/sparsely vegetated
13 HMZ 38.7781° N 100.6967° E 1625 m Barren/sparsely vegetated

a
BND: Bondville, TBL: Table Mountain, DRA: Desert Rock, FPK: Fort Peck, GCM: Goodwin Creek, PSU: Pennsylvania State University, SXF: Sioux Falls, EVO:
Evora, KAL: Farm Heimat, GBB: Gobabeb, GBZ: Gobi, HZZ: Huazhaizi, and HMZ: Huangmo.

18
S.-B. Duan, et al. Remote Sensing of Environment 225 (2019) 16–29

EVO KAL GBB

Fig. 2. The three KIT LST validation sites.

desiccated grass. Due to the hyperarid desert climate, the site is spa-
GBZ HZZ HMZ tially and temporally highly stable and, therefore, ideal for the long-
term validation of satellite products (Göttsche et al., 2013, 2016). Long-
term average air temperature at GBB is 21.1 °C, whereas average annual
precipitation is < 100 mm and highly variable. Two KT-15.85 IIP in-
frared radiometers were deployed at the GBB site. One radiometer, with
a field of view (FOV) of 8.5°, is mounted at a height of 25 m and ob-
serves an area of approximately 14 m2. The other radiometer views the
sky at a 53° zenith angle. All station measurements are collected once
per minute. The surface emissivity of the gravel plain is considered
constant (Masiello et al., 2018; Göttsche et al., 2018) and is estimated
to be 0.94 for KT15.85 IIP radiometers (Göttsche and Hulley, 2012).

3.3. HiWATER sites

The Heihe Watershed Allied Telemetry Experimental Research

Fig. 3. The three HiWATER sites used in this study. (HiWATER) is a comprehensive eco-hydrological experiment conducted
in the Heihe River Basin, the second largest inland river basin in the
arid regions of northwest China (37.7°–42.7° N, 97.1°–102.0° E). It was
The climate at the station is warm temperate with hot, dry summers,
designed from an interdisciplinary perspective to address problems that
annual temperature averages between 15 °C and 16 °C, and an average
include heterogeneity, scaling, uncertainty, and closing of the water
annual precipitation of 669 mm. The in situ measurements are collected
cycle at the watershed scale (Li et al., 2013a). We used ground-based
every minute by three KT-15.85 IIP infrared radiometers, observing the
measurements from three sites, i.e., GBZ, HZZ, and HMZ. Fig. 3 shows
sunlit background, a tree crown, and the sky at a 53° zenith angle,
the three HiWATER sites and Table 1 provides some site-specific details.
which is used to estimate the atmospheric downwelling radiance. The
The three sites are covered by bare soil and low desert grass. The
KT-15.85 IIP measures thermal infrared radiance in the 9.6–11.5 μm
GBZ site is equipped with a Kipp & Zonen CNR1 net radiometer, which
domain and obtains brightness temperatures with an absolute accuracy
measures upwelling and downwelling hemispherical broad-band ra-
of ± 0.3 K (Theocharous et al., 2010). Surface emissivity was estimated
diances (5–50 μm) from a height of 6 m. The HZZ and HMZ sites are
using fixed end-member fractions (tree = 32%, grass/ground = 68%),
each equipped with two Apogee SI-111 infrared radiometers (8–14 μm;
i.e., the temporal dependence of the cover fractions was ignored
44° full view angle). One radiometer each observes the surface at nadir
(Ermida et al., 2014). The KT-15.85 IIP emissivity was set to a static
from a height of 4 m with a footprint of 8 m2 at the HMZ site and one
value of 0.974, which is a typical value for vegetation and close to the
from a height of 2.65 m with a footprint of 3.6 m2 at the HZZ site. The
corresponding LSA SAF emissivity for SEVIRI channel 9 at the EVO site.
other radiometer at each site views the sky at an effective angle of
KAL LST validation station is located approximately 100 km south-
approximately 55° from zenith to measure atmospheric downwelling
east from Windhuk on a plateau of the Kalahari semi-desert in Namibia.
radiance. The SI-111 and CNR1 measurements are collected once per
The station has a size of approximately 50 km2. It is characterized by
minute. Emissivity of 0.948 for the Kipp & Zonen CNR1 instrument at
hot and arid climate, which exhibits a natural seasonality. The station is
GBZ followed the approach described in Section 3.1 for the SURFRAD
located in a typical Kalahari land scape and a wide area around the
sites via Eq. (3). Surface emissivities at the HZZ and HMZ sites were
mast is mainly covered by patchy, desiccated grass dotted with bushes
determined using the vegetation cover method. The end-member
and isolated camel thorn trees. The in situ measurements are collected
emissivities of bare soil and desert grass were measured using an ABB
every minute by three KT-15.85 IIP infrared radiometers, observing
BOMEM MR304 spectroradiometer with a spectral resolution of
grass/bare ground, bush/tree crown, and the sky at a 53° zenith angle.
1 cm−1. Nine and five emissivity samples were measured for bare soil
The measured component radiances are mixed according to their re-
and desert grass, respectively. The emissivity spectra were retrieved
spective cover fractions, which were determined from high-resolution
using the Iterative Spectrally Smooth Temperature and Emissivity Se-
satellite imagery. The KT-15.85 IIP's emissivities of the two observed
paration (ISSTES) algorithm (Ingram and Muse, 2001). The Fractional
end-members are set to the value retrieved operationally by LSA SAF
Vegetation Cover (FVC) of the sites was obtained with a photographic
for MSG/SEVIRI channel 9: over the course of the year this value varies
method at nadir view. The SI-111 channel emissivity was obtained by
little between about 0.973–0.984, which is in good agreement with
convolving the emissivity spectra with the spectral response function of
literature values for vegetation (Göttsche et al., 2016).
the SI-111 infrared radiometers: for the HZZ and HMZ sites an emis-
GBB LST validation station is located on the large gravel plains
sivity value of 0.97 was obtained (Li et al., 2014a).
(several thousand km2) of the Namib Desert in Namibia, which are
covered by a highly homogeneous mixture of gravel, sand, and sparse

19
S.-B. Duan, et al.
4. Methodologies
4.1. In situ LST estimation
For the KT-15.85 IIP infrared radiometers at the KIT sites and the SI-
111 infrared radiometers at the HiWATER sites, in situ LST was esti-
mated from directional surface-leaving radiances and downwelling ‘sky’
radiances:
Rg, λ − (1 − ελ ) Rd, λ ⎤
LSTg = Bλ−1 ⎡
⎢
⎣ ελ ⎥
⎦ (4)
where LSTg is the in situ LST (K), B is the Planck function, Rg,λ is the
radiance measured by the surface-observing radiometer (W/m2/sr/μm),
ελ is the spectral emissivity at wavelength λ, and Rd,λ is the down-
welling radiance (W/m2/sr/μm); for a radiometer that views the sky at
the ‘representative’ zenith angle of 53°, the measured Rd,λ is equivalent
to the hemispherical downwelling irradiance divided by π (Kondratyev,
1969; Garcia-Santos et al., 2013).
For the pyrgeometers at the SURFRAD sites and the CNR1 net
radiometers at the HiWATER sites, in situ LST were estimated from the
measured upwelling and downwelling broadband hemispherical ra-
diances using Stefan-Boltzmann's law:
Rg − (1 − εb ) Rd ⎤1/4
LSTg = ⎡
⎢
⎣ σεb ⎥
⎦ (5)
where LSTg is the in situ LST (K), Rg is the upwelling broadband
hemispherical radiance (W/m2), Rd is the downwelling broadband
hemispherical radiance (W/m2), σ is the Stefan-Boltzmann constant
(5.67 × 10−8 W/m2/K4), and εb is the surface broadband emissivity.
4.2. Temperature-based validation method
Three methods were widely used to validate LST products derived
from satellite measurements, i.e., temperature-based validation method
(Wan et al., 2002, 2004b; Coll et al., 2009; Göttsche et al., 2016; Xu
et al., 2014; Ouyang et al., 2017; Martin and Göttsche, 2016), radiance-
based validation method (Wan and Li, 2008; Wan, 2008, 2014; Coll
et al., 2009; Niclòs et al., 2011; Hulley and Hook, 2012; Gomis-Cebolla
et al., 2018; Duan et al., 2018), and inter-comparison method (Guillevic
et al., 2014; Frey et al., 2012; Trigo et al., 2008; Ermida et al., 2014;
Duan and Li, 2015, Duan et al., 2017b). The three methods are com-
plementary and provide different levels of information about the ac-
curacy of the satellite-derived LST products. A comprehensive review of
LST validation methods and best practices are provided by Guillevic
et al. (2018).
The temperature-based validation method involves a direct com-
parison of ground-based LST observations and satellite-derived LST
product (Coll et al., 2005; Hook et al. 2007; Wang et al., 2008; Wang
and Liang, 2009; Guillevic et al., 2012, 2014; Göttsche et al., 2013;
Ermida et al., 2014; Li et al., 2014a; Krishnan et al., 2015). It allows the
determination of the accuracy in satellite-derived LST product.
LST values of MOD11_L2 and MYD11_L2 products were extracted
for the pixel closest to each site based on longitude and latitude: to
minimize the effect of cloud contamination on the validation results,
only high-quality data (i.e., QC = 0) were evaluated. Furthermore, only
in situ LST with the quality flag corresponding to good data were used.
MODIS and in situ LST were temporally matched with each other to
better than 1 min.
4.3. Robust outlier removal
To obtain robust statistics of LST validation, it is necessary to re-
move outliers due to cloud contamination (Göttsche et al., 2013). A
popular method for outlier detection is the “3σ-edit rule”. It assumes
that a data sequence is approximately normally distributed and a point
20
Remote Sensing of Environment 225 (2019) 16–29
further than three standard deviations from the mean is regarded as an
outlier (Pearson, 2002). The probability that a point is wrongly re-
moved as an outlier is approximately 0.3%. However, the “3σ-edit rule”
usually fails in practice because outliers lead to biased estimates of the
mean and standard deviation. A robust method for outlier detection is
the “3σ-Hampel identifer” (Davies and Gather, 1993). In this method,
the mean is replaced by the median, whereas the standard deviation is
estimated as:
S = 1.4826 × median {|x i − x m|} (6)
where xm is the median of the data sequence {xi}, and S is the standard
deviation of the data sequence {xi}. The constant 1.4826 is chosen to
obtain an unbiased estimate of the standard deviation for Gaussian data
(Pearson, 2002).
In this study, the data sequence {xi} is formed by the differences
between the MODIS and in situ LST. The data points with LST differ-
ences less than xm-3S or larger than xm + 3S are regarded as outliers.
The “3σ-Hampel identifer” only removes a relatively small fraction of
outliers (mainly undetected clouds), typically < 10%.
5. Results and analyses
5.1. Evaluation of spatial representativeness of ground-based LST
observations
In order to validate satellite LST products accurately, it has to be
ensured that the ground-based (point) measurements are representative
on the satellite pixel scale (Guillevic et al., 2018). The easiest way to
ensure this is to perform the LST validation over a large and relatively
homogeneous area (Göttsche et al., 2016). Prior to the validation of the
MODIS LST product, the ASTER LST product at a spatial resolution of
90 m was used to evaluate the spatial homogeneity of the validation
sites. A subset of 11 × 11 ASTER pixels corresponding to the MODIS
pixel centered on each station was used to calculate the spatial standard
deviation (STD) of LST; all available clear-sky ASTER granules down-
loaded from the EARTHDATA website were included in the statistics.
Clear-sky ASTER granules during daytime were identified by visual
inspection of ASTER RGB false-color images while at nighttime the
MODIS cloud mask product was used.
Fig. 4 shows boxplots of the STD of 11 × 11 ASTER LST subsets
during daytime (a) and nighttime (b): the STDs during daytime are
considerably larger than at night. The results show that LST exhibits
higher spatial variability during daytime than at night; here, sites with
a spatial STD < 1.5 K and a median STD < 1 K are considered homo-
geneous. Therefore, sites S3 (DRA), K2 (KAL), K3 (GBB), H1 (GBZ), H2
(HZZ), and H3 (HMZ) were selected as homogeneous ‘daytime’ sites,
whereas all sites but S2 (TBL) were selected as homogeneous ‘night-
time’ sites.
5.2. Validation of daytime MODIS LST
In situ measurements at the DRA, KAL, GBB, GBZ, HZZ, and HMZ
sites were used to validate daytime MODIS LST. Fig. 5 shows C5 and C6
MODIS LST versus in situ LST for the six sites; although these are re-
latively homogeneous at the ASTER pixel scale (see Fig. 4), RMSE larger
than 2 K is found for both LST products over all sites except for C6
MODIS LST over the GBB site. The results indicate that the temperature-
based method is challenging to use for validating daytime LST and re-
quires in situ LST that are representative of the satellite pixel, such as
the GBB site. For the GBB site, the RMSE for C6 (1.7 K) is approximately
two times less than that for C5 (3.8 K). The improved results are due to
the adjusted emissivities of the C6 MODIS GSW algorithm over bare soil
surfaces. However, when comparing these results to the literature
(Göttsche et al., 2016; Ermida et al., 2014, 2017; Guillevic et al., 2013,
2014) and bearing in mind the high degree of homogeneity of the
‘daytime’ sites (see Fig. 4), the negative biases are likely due to viewing
S.-B. Duan, et al. Remote Sensing of Environment 225 (2019) 16–29

Fig. 4. Spatial STD of 11 × 11 ASTER LST subsets corresponding to the MODIS pixel centered on each site for (a) daytime and (b) nighttime. S1: BND, S2: TBL, S3:
DRA, S4: FPK, S5: GCM, S6: PSU, S7: SXF, K1: EVO, K2: KAL, K3: GBB, H1: GBZ, H2: HZZ, and H3: HMZ. There are no clear-sky ASTER granules at SXF during
nighttime. In the boxplots, the upper and lower whiskers mark the maximum and minimum, respectively, while the lines in the middle of the boxes indicate the
median, and the bottom and top of a box show the first and third quartiles. Plus signs are outliers.

Fig. 5. Scatterplots of C5 and C6 MODIS LST versus in situ LST during daytime at (a) DRA, (b) KAL, (c) GBB, (d) GBZ, (e) HZZ, and (f) HMZ.

21
S.-B. Duan, et al. Remote Sensing of Environment 225 (2019) 16–29

Fig. 6. C6 MODIS LST versus in situ LST during daytime at (a) BND and (b) DRA. Only data points are shown for which the STD of the 11 × 11 ASTER LST subsets
centered on the MODIS pixel is < 1 K.

Fig. 7. C5 and C6 MODIS LST versus in situ LST during nighttime at (a) BND, (b) DRA, (c) FPK, (d) GCM, (e) PSU, (f) SXF, (g) EVO, (h) KAL, (i) GBB, (j) GBZ, (k) HZZ,
and (l) HMZ.

22
S.-B. Duan, et al. Remote Sensing of Environment 225 (2019) 16–29

Fig. 7. (continued)

Table 2 the usually warmer soil background (Ermida et al., 2014).

Bias and RMSE of the difference between C6 Terra/Aqua-MODIS LST and in situ It should be noted that whether in situ LST at selected sites is spa-
LST during nighttime. tially representative at satellite pixel scale also depends on satellite
Site ID Terra-MODIS Aqua-MODIS overpass time and date, e.g., due to seasonal vegetation changes and
agricultural activities. The spatial representativeness of in situ mea-
Num Bias (K) RMSE (K) Num Bias (K) RMSE (K) surements for the coarse satellite pixel scale can be evaluated with a
fine LST image acquired at the same observation time. In this study,
BND 67 −0.94 1.37 58 −1.04 1.70
DRA 286 −3.45 3.53 290 −3.74 3.85 only in situ measurements were used to further evaluate the accuracy of
FPK 113 −1.14 1.61 155 −0.54 1.27 the MODIS LST product, for which the STD of the 11 × 11 simultaneous
GCM 132 1.36 2.00 97 1.40 1.88 ASTER LST centered on the MODIS pixel was < 1 K. Only at BND and
PSU 63 0.48 1.66 66 0.51 1.61 DRA the number of data points is > 5. Fig. 6 shows C6 MODIS LST
SXF 131 −0.26 1.53 25 −0.95 1.48
EVO 119 0.35 1.40 85 0.73 1.43
versus in situ LST during daytime at BND and DRA. For both sites, the
KAL 178 −0.11 0.76 84 −0.01 0.74 C6 MODIS LST product is in good agreement with in situ LST, with an
GBB 224 −0.92 1.49 109 −0.43 1.34 absolute bias < 0.2 K and an RMSE < 1.3 K. The results indicate that
GBZ 217 −1.45 1.75 224 −1.62 1.86 when spatial thermal homogeneity is high on the ASTER pixel scale
HZZ 172 −0.95 1.33 166 −0.75 1.17
(about 100 m), the in situ measurements obtained during daytime are
HMZ 204 −1.52 1.78 205 −1.00 1.24
also representative of MODIS LST.

geometry differences between satellite and in-situ sensors, which at 5.3. Validation of nighttime MODIS LST
daytime over sparse vegetation canopies cause satellites to view a larger
fraction of vegetation (at near air temperature) and a smaller fraction of In situ measurements at all sites except for the TBL site were used to

23
S.-B. Duan, et al.
Fig. 8. Monthly mean bias (MODIS LST – in situ LST) during nighttime for the years 2013 and 2014 at (a) BND, (b) DRA, (c) FPK, (d) GCM, (e) PSU, (f) SXF, (g) EVO,
(h) KAL, (i) GBB, (j) GBZ, (k) HZZ, and (l) HMZ.
validate the MODIS LST product during nighttime. Fig. 7 shows scat-
terplots of C5 and C6 MODIS LST versus in situ LST during nighttime for
the twelve sites. Except for the GBB site, there are only small differences
(< 0.4 K) between the RMSE for C5 and C6. For the GBB site, the RMSE
for C6 (1.5 K) is significantly less than that for C5 (3.6 K). The accuracy
of the C5/C6 MODIS LST product during nighttime is better than 2 K at
all sites with the exception of the C5 product at GBB and the C5/C6
product at DRA. Furthermore, there is an obvious overestimation of the
C5/C6 MODIS LST product at GCM, which is covered by a hetero-
geneous mixture of grassland and woods. When looking at the photo of
the GCM site (Fig. 1), “a possible explanation could be that the mixture
of grassland and woods observed by the satellite stays warmer during
nighttime than the ‘pure’ grass observed by the in situ sensor, because
tree crown temperature is usually closer to air temperature while open
(short grass) areas experience stronger radiative cooling” (Martin and
Göttsche, 2016).
We further compare the accuracy of the C6 Terra-MODIS and Aqua-
MODIS LST product. The bias and RMSE of the difference between C6
Terra/Aqua-MODIS LST and in situ LST during nighttime are
24
Remote Sensing of Environment 225 (2019) 16–29
summarized in Table 2. Only small differences (< 0.5 K) between the
RMSE for C6 Terra-MODIS and Aqua-MODIS LST are observed over the
investigated sites.
To analyze the bias variability at the twelve sites, the monthly mean
bias (MODIS LST – in situ LST) during nighttime for the years 2013 and
2014 are shown in Fig. 8. Except for the DRA, GBB, GBZ, HZZ, and HMZ
sites, there are no significant discrepancy between the monthly mean
bias for C5 and C6 during nighttime. The bias for most months at FPK,
PSU, SXF, EVO, and KAL is between −1 K and 1 K. As shown in Fig. 8,
the overall absolute bias at the five sites is < 1 K. Smaller absolute bias
can be found during summer months at BND and GCM, which could be
attributed to the changes in vegetation phenology. The bias decreases to
a minimum during the summer as the vegetation fully mature in July
and August, resulting in more homogeneous temperature distribution
around the two sites. Larger differences between the monthly mean bias
for C5 and C6 during nighttime are observed at DRA, GBB, GBZ, HZZ,
and HMZ.
To further analyze the factors resulting in the discrepancy between
the monthly mean bias for C5 and C6 during nighttime at DRA, GBB,
S.-B. Duan, et al.
Fig. 8. (continued)
GBZ, HZZ, and HMZ, we compared the emissivity values in MODIS
bands 31 and 32 and their mean and difference for the ASTER GED and
C5 and C6 MODIS emissivity products at the five sites. The comparison
results are shown in Fig. 9. The ASTER GED product was converted into
emissivity values corresponding to MODIS bands 31 and 32 in terms of
MODIS and ASTER spectral response function and emissivity spectra
from the ASTER spectral library. The surface types of the five sites are
barren/sparsely vegetated or open shrublands. The ASTER emissivity
product has higher retrieval accuracy over barren/sparsely vegetated or
open shrublands (Hulley et al., 2015). Therefore, the ASTER GED
product is used as reference values to evaluate the performance of the
C5 and C6 MODIS emissivity products.
By comparing the C5 and C6 MODIS and ASTER GED emissivity
products, the five sites can be divided into three groups: the first for
DRA, the second for GBB, and the third for GBZ, HZZ, and HMZ. For the
DRA site, the discrepancies between the ASTER GED product and the C5
and C6 MODIS emissivity products are small in terms of emissivity
values in MODIS bands 31 and 32 and their mean and difference. The
results indicate that surface emissivity is not the main factor resulting in
the discrepancy between the C5 and C6 MODIS LST at DRA. For the
25
Remote Sensing of Environment 225 (2019) 16–29
GBB site, the C6 emissivity values in MODIS bands 31 and 32 are closer
to those in the ASTER GED product. Both the emissivity mean values for
C5 and C6 are nearly equal to those for the ASTER GED product,
whereas the emissivity difference value for C6 is more close to that for
the ASTER GED product. Wan (2014) reported that the GSW algorithm
is more sensitive to the change in the emissivity difference than the
change in the emissivity mean. Therefore, the accuracy of the C6
MODIS LST product is better than that of the C5 MODIS LST product at
GBB. For the GBZ, HZZ, and HMZ sites, the C5 emissivity values in
MODIS bands 31 and 32 and their mean are closer to those in the
ASTER GED product. Furthermore, the emissivity difference is nearly
equal for C5 and C6 at these three sites. Therefore, at GBZ, HZZ, and
HMZ the accuracy of the C5 MODIS LST product is better than that of
the C6 MODIS LST product. The results can mainly be contributed to
the misclassification of surface types as grasslands in the C5.1 MODIS
land cover type product at these three sites, which is used to estimate
the C6 MODIS emissivity in the GSW algorithm.
We further investigate the reasons for large discrepancies between
the C5 and C6 MODIS LST and in situ LST at DRA. Fig. 10 shows the
scatterplot of the C6 MODIS LST versus in situ LST during nighttime. It
S.-B. Duan, et al. Remote Sensing of Environment 225 (2019) 16–29

Fig. 9. Comparison of emissivity values in MODIS bands 31 and 32 and their mean and difference for the ASTER GED and C5 and C6 MODIS emissivity products at
DRA, GBB, GBZ, HZZ, and HMZ. (a) Emissivity values in MODIS band 31, (b) emissivity values in MODIS band 32, (c) emissivity mean, and (d) emissivity difference
between MODIS bands 31 and 32. The ASTER GED product was converted into emissivity values corresponding to MODIS bands 31 and 32 by means of MODIS and
ASTER spectral response function and emissivity spectra from the ASTER spectral library.

Fig. 11. C6 MODIS LST versus in situ LST at the sites of Wan et al. (2002,
Fig. 10. C6 MODIS LST versus in situ LST during nighttime at DRA. The data 2004a, 2004b) and Coll et al. (2016).
points represent the cases for which the STD of the 11 × 11 ASTER LST subsets
centered on the MODIS pixel is < 1 K.
6. Discussion

is obvious that a large systematic bias (−3.44 K) between the C6
MODIS LST and in situ LST can be found. Similar systematic biases
(−3.85 K for AATSR LST and −2.05 K for VIIRS LST) were also re-
ported in Ghent et al. (2017) and Guillevic et al. (2014) when compared
AATSR and VIIRS LST with in situ LST during nighttime at DRA. The
results may be due to the hemispherical in situ sensor observing more
bushes (which is at air temperature; see Fig. 1) than the directional
satellite sensor. The smaller bias at daytime may be due to an acci-
dentally representative mixture of sunlit soil, shadow, and bush in the
FOV of the in situ sensor.
6.1. Issues of the MODIS LST product
According to the results and analyses above, the largest uncertainty
in the MODIS GSW algorithm is the determination of surface emissivity.
The MODIS GSW algorithm uses the classification-based emissivity
method. The key point of this method is to assign surface emissivities
based on land cover classification (Snyder et al., 1998; Li et al., 2013c).
Two main aspects of the classification-based emissivity method cause
uncertainty in surface emissivity: (1) the accuracy of the emissivity
estimation depends on the accuracy of the land cover type product.
Misclassifications in the land cover type product would lead to emis-
sivity errors. (2) Emissivities used in the MODIS GSW algorithm are
derived from fixed values for a limited number of land cover types,

26
S.-B. Duan, et al.
which do not fully represent the natural variation in emissivity, espe-
cially over bare soil surfaces. The incorporation of a dynamic emissivity
product, e.g., as generated by the temperature and emissivity separa-
tion (TES) algorithm (Hulley and Hook, 2011; Malakar and Hulley,
2016; Islam et al., 2017), into the GSW algorithm would be one way to
improve the accuracy of the MODIS LST product.
6.2. Challenges of temperature-based validation
As noted by Yu et al. (2012), there are many challenges in the
temperature-based validation of satellite-derived LST product. Because
of large spatial variations in LST, in situ LST measurements do not
necessarily represent LST measurements at the satellite pixel scale,
especially during the day. At night, air temperature and LST are similar
to each other and the LST is more spatially homogeneous; therefore, in
situ LST observations at night are more representative of LST at the
satellite pixel scale. Consequently, Wang et al. (2008) validated MODIS
LST product using nighttime data only.
To obtain spatially representative and high-quality in situ LST,
previous studies conducted field campaigns only over large homo-
geneous sites, such as lakes, snow, grasslands, silt playas, and cropland
fields (Wan et al., 2002, 2004a, 2004b; Coll et al., 2005, 2009). Fig. 11
shows a scatterplot between the C6 MODIS LST and in situ LST com-
piled for the sites of Wan et al. (2002, 2004a, 2004b) and Coll et al.
(2016). The RMSE of the LST differences is < 1 K, which indicates that
for well-chosen and dedicated sites, temperate-based validation is a
suitable means for corroborating satellite-derived LST product. How-
ever, quantitative assessments of satellite-derived LST product require
dedicated and high-quality in situ LST observations over sites that are
homogeneous at the satellite pixel scale. Therefore, it is necessary to
ensure spatial homogeneity of the land cover on the scale of the field
radiometer as well as over the satellite pixel (Göttsche et al., 2013).
TIR field radiometers usually collect ground-based measurements
near nadir at wider view angles, whereas satellite sensors with wide
swaths, e.g., MODIS, AVHRR, and VIIRS, may observe a specific site
considerably off-nadir at narrow view angles. Such observation differ-
ences can cause discrepancies between in situ LST and satellite-derived
LST. Furthermore, a larger VZA results in a longer atmospheric path
length, which causes a significant decrease in atmospheric transmit-
tance and may introduce significant retrieval errors in the GSW algo-
rithm, particularly under high LST conditions. Additionally, a larger
VZA leads to larger differences in the target areas actually observed by
TIR field radiometers and satellite sensors, especially over spatially
heterogeneous validation sites.
7. Conclusions
The C6 MODIS LST product was validated using in situ measure-
ments collected from various sites under different atmospheric and
surface conditions, including seven SURFRAD sites in the United States,
three KIT sites in Portugal and Namibia, and three HiWATER sites in
China. We draw the following conclusions:
(1) It is necessary to evaluate the spatial representativeness of in situ
LST measurements prior to the validation of satellite-derived LST
product. Therefore, it is considerably easier to perform tempera-
ture-based validation over large and relatively homogeneous sites.
(2) In situ LST measurements during daytime in most cases cannot be
used to validate satellite-derived LST product due to high spatial
thermal heterogeneity. However, if the site has high spatial thermal
homogeneity corresponding to the crossing time and the pixel scale
of the satellite being validated, in situ measurements during day-
time can also be used for LST validation.
(3) In situ LST measurements during nighttime are the most reliable for
validating satellite-derived LST product, which arises from similar
LST and air temperature (i.e., absence of surface overheating) and
27
Remote Sensing of Environment 225 (2019) 16–29
spatially considerably more homogeneous LST.
(4) Except for bare soil surfaces, the RMSE difference between C5 and
C6 MODIS LST is < 0.4 K.
(5) The emissivity adjustments of the C6 MODIS GSW algorithm suc-
cessfully reduced C6 MODIS LST errors over some bare soil sur-
faces, e.g. the GBB site.
(6) The largest uncertainty in the MODIS GSW algorithm is the de-
termination of surface emissivity. The classification-based emis-
sivity method is not able to reliably characterize the spectral
emissivity variation over bare soil surfaces. One way to improve the
GSW algorithm would be to incorporate dynamic LSE retrieved
with a physics-based algorithm, e.g., the TES algorithm.
(7) Over all surfaces but bare soil the performance of the C6 MODIS
GSW algorithm is nearly the same as that of the C5 algorithm.
Therefore, we conclude that users do not need to switch to the C6
MODIS LST product and can continue to use the C5 MODIS LST
product. However, for studies over bare soil surfaces (e.g., deserts),
users are recommended to use the C6 MODIS LST product, which
outperforms the corresponding C5 product over most desert sites
(Duan et al., 2017b, 2018; Wan, 2014).
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of
China, 2018YFB0504800 (2018YFB0504804), by the National Natural
Science Foundation of China under Grant 41871275, and by the Youth
Innovation Promotion Association CAS, China under Grant 2016333.
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