Estimation of Maximum and Minimum Daily Air Temperature Using MODIS Surface Temperature Products

Due to the importance of meteorological data and limitations of data gathering from ground stations, remote sensing can play an important role in the preparation of these data. The purpose of this study was to quantitatively evaluate the Land Surface Temperature (LST) obtained from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensor images for estimating the maximum and minimum daily air temperature in the Taleghan watershed. For this purpose, the maximum and minimum daily air temperature data of three existing ground stations for the period 2009 to 2015 were obtained. Day and night LST and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) values ​​of MODIS were also prepared. The relationships between each of the effective variables and maximum and minimum daily air temperature in ground stations have been extracted using multiple linear regression method. The results showed that there was a significant correlation between maximum and minimum daily temperature of ground stations with day and night LST and NDVI from MODIS sensor. Therefore, these variables were used in regression relationships. The results of validation showed that the established relationships with all effective variables had the most accuracy. Therefore, the best model for estimating the maximum daily air temperature had , NSE and RMSE values ​​of 0.74, 0.74, and +4.7, respectively and for estimating the minimum daily air temperature had 0.71, 0.72 and +2.9, respectively. Therefore, by converting the surface temperature obtained from MODIS sensor images, the air temperature can be estimated with high accuracy on a daily and monthly scales for various studies.