Iterative self‐consistent approach for Earth surface temperature determination

Abstract

The split‐window method is used widely for Earth surface temperature determination from remotely sensed data. The split‐window coefficients depend on the surface emissivities, atmospheric absorption coefficients and total water vapour amount. It is always a challenge to obtain the local split‐window coefficients for the land surface. An iterative self‐consistent approach has been used previously for studying atmospheric effects in optical scanner data for the oceans. This Letter presents a similar approach for Earth surface temperatures. The method can be used for Along‐Track Scanning Radiometer (ATSR) thermal infrared data to derive the localized split‐window coefficients, which are a function of space and time of surface emissivity, radiative forcing, etc., especially for land surface areas.