An Autonomous System to Take Angular Thermal-Infrared Measurements for Validating Satellite Products

An autonomous system for field land surface temperature (LST) measurements taken at different observation angles was developed to be deployed easily at any conventional meteorological tower station. The system permits ground-truth data to be acquired on a continuous basis, and angularly scans land and sky hemispheres with a single thermal-infrared (TIR) radiometer. This paper describes the autonomous angular system and the methodology to assess ground-truth LST and relative-to-nadir emissivity data from system measurements. Ground-truth LSTs were used to validate satellite-retrieved LST products at two experimental sites (rice crop and shrubland areas). The relative-to-nadir emissivity values were used to analyze the anisotropy of surface emissive properties over thermally-homogeneous covers. The EOS-MODIS MOD11_L2/MYD11_L2 LST product was evaluated and shown to work within expected uncertainties (<2.0 K) when tested against the system data. A slight underestimation of around -0.15 K was observed, which became greater for the off-nadir observation angles at the shrubland site. The system took angular measurements for the different seasonal homogeneous covers at the rice crop site. These measurements showed emissivity angular anisotropies, which were in good agreement with previously published data. The dual-view ENVISAT-AATSR data reproduced them, and revealed that the system data collected for thermally-homogeneous surfaces could be used to test future satellite TIR sensors with multi-angular or bi-angular capabilities, like the forthcoming SLSTR on board Copernicus Sentinel-3A.