Land-surface temperature retrieval at high spatial and temporal resolutions based on multi-sensor fusion

Land-surface temperature (LST) is of great significance for the estimation of radiation and energy budgets associated with land-surface processes. However, the available satellite LST products have either low spatial resolution or low temporal resolution, which constrains their potential applications. This paper proposes a spatiotemporal fusion method for retrieving LST at high spatial and temporal resolutions. One important characteristic of the proposed method is the consideration of the sensor observation differences between different land-cover types. The other main contribution is that the spatial correlations between different pixels are effectively considered by the use of a variation-based model. The method was tested and assessed quantitatively using the different sensors of Landsat TM/ETM+, moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer and the geostationary operational environmental satellite imager. The validation results indicate that the proposed multisensor fusion method is accurate to about 2.5 K.