What is it about?
Land Surface Temperature (LST) is considered important in monitoring the energy flux between the land surface and atmosphere. Due to the diversity of topography in Iran and its effect on the climate diversity, we decided to study the effect of topography on the LST variations. To this end, the LST digital data derived from the observations of the MODIS Terra and Aqua were used. The results indicated that, during the daytime, from sea level up to a height of 400 meters, the LST increased, and then the temperature decreased with increasing altitude, and up to a height of 3000 meters, there was a strong correlation between the two. LST lapse rate was more during the daytime compared with that of the night time and it was more during the winter compared with the summer. LST lapse rate showed larger variability in diurnal cycle, but its monthly patterns were similar in different aspects. The aspect had substantial effect on LST inversion elevation. Furthermore, the inverse relationship between LST and slope was strong in slopes up to 20°.
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Why is it important?
Iran has significant variation in climate. A great part of this variation can be attributed to its topographical diversity. Land Surface Temperature (LST) lapse rate (the rate of surface temperature decrease with increase in elevation) variation in a vast area is very useful in multiple studies such as water resource management, snow line and floods water stress in planets and many other themes which are related to temperature and its lapse rate. The LST is an important parameter in monitoring energy flux between land surface and atmosphere taking place in the form of sensible and latent heat flux. LST is required for a wide variety of studies carried out in climatology, hydrology, and ecology.
Perspectives
The measurement of climate data such as LST in a high spatial resolution has always been brought up as a challenge. This problem is more evident especially in high elevations and remote areas. Due to sparse and scattered meteorological stations and high spatial variation, LST is mostly measured by satellite retrievals on regional to global scales. Also, due to high heterogeneity in land surface characteristics such as vegetation cover, topography, and soil, LST shows significant temporal and spatial variations Therefore, these spatial and temporal behaviors not only reflect the variations of climatic factors, but they also reflect land surface features such as vegetation, soil moisture, and lithology.
Masoud Moradi
University of Kurdistan
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: On the relationship between MODIS Land Surface Temperature and topography in Iran, Physical Geography, March 2018, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/02723646.2018.1426167.
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