Diurnal Cycles of High Resolution Land Surface Temperatures (LSTs) Determined from UAV Platforms Across a Range of Surface Types
Abstract
Observation of land surface temperature (LST) has many practical uses, from studying boundary layer dynamics and land-atmosphere coupling, to investigating surface properties such as soil moisture status, heat stress and surface heat fluxes. Typically, LST is observed via satellite based sensors such as LandSat or via point measurements using IR radiometers. These measurements provide either good spatial coverage and resolution or good temporal coverage. However, neither are able to provide the needed spatial and temporal resolution for many of the research applications described above. Technological developments in the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), together with small thermal frame cameras, has enabled a capacity to overcome this spatiotemporal constraint. Utilising UAV platforms to collect LST measurements across diurnal cycles provides an opportunity to study how meteorological and surface properties vary in both space and time. Here we describe the collection of LST data from a multi-rotor UAV across a study domain that is observed multiple times throughout the day. Flights over crops of Rhodes grass and alfalfa, along with a bare desert surface, were repeated with between 8 and 11 surveys covering the period from early morning to sunset. Analysis of the collected thermal imagery shows that the constructed LST maps illustrate a strong diurnal cycle consistent with expected trends, but with considerable spatial and temporal variability observed within and between the different domains. These results offer new insights into the dynamics of land surface behavior in both dry and wet soil conditions and at spatiotemporal scales that are unable to be replicated using traditional satellite platforms.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2017
- Bibcode:
- 2017AGUFM.H41D1466M
- Keywords:
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- 1848 Monitoring networks;
- HYDROLOGY;
- 1855 Remote sensing;
- HYDROLOGY;
- 1894 Instruments and techniques: modeling;
- HYDROLOGY;
- 1895 Instruments and techniques: monitoring;
- HYDROLOGY