Inferring land surface parameters from the diurnal variability of microwave and infrared temperatures

This study investigates the properties of the diurnal cycle of microwave brightness temperatures (TB), namely the phase and the amplitude, and their variability in time and space over the globe to infer information on key land surface parameters like changes in soil texture spatial distribution, soil moisture conditions, and vegetation density. The phase corresponds to the lag between Land Surface Temperature (LST) and TB diurnal cycles. The amplitude is determined as the difference between the maximum and the minimum of TB diurnal cycle. The diurnal cycle of TB was constructed using observations from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer-Earth Observing System (AMSR-E) and the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I). The latter offer a series of sensors, namely, F13, F14, and F15 that were used in this study for a higher temporal coverage and more accurate diurnal cycle determination. LST estimates, which are available every 3h from the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) database were used to build the LST diurnal cycle. ISCCP LST data is an infrared-based temperature with almost no penetration and is the representative of top skin temperature. The analyses of the diurnal cycles showed that the diurnal amplitude of TB decreases as the vegetation density increases, especially in the case of low frequencies which penetrate deeper into the canopy which makes them more sensitive to changes in vegetation density. The interannual variations of TB diurna...
Source: Physics and Chemistry of the Earth, Parts ABC - Category: Science Source Type: research