Operational generation of AVHRR-based land surface temperatures (LST)-a new value adding product from the German Remote Sensing Data Center

Abstract

The German Remote Sensing Data Center (DFD) of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) has been receiving, archiving, and distributing high resolution picture transmission (HRPT) data since the early 1980s. The station's visibility covers Europe and its surroundings. DFD started the generation of thematic AVHRR value-added products consisting of multichannel sea surface temperatures (MCSST) and normalized difference vegetation indices (NDVI) in 1993. Calibrated and registered 5-channel image subsets of two areas have been generated for supporting regional applications since 1994. The improvement of the current products as well as the definition of new products has always been of major concern to DFD. The operational generation of land surface temperature (LST) based on estimated emissivity using NDVI time profiles has become operational in May 1998 and provides the user community with daily near-real-time (maximum delay 2 days) LST information for the whole of Europe. New AVHRR based level-3 products such as cloud parameters using the APOLLO algorithm developed by Saunders and Kriebel (1988) have been designed and are operationally generated and archived from January of 1998. A processing scheme for retrospective processing has been developed and will provide historical cloud data of central Europe from the early eighties. An overview is given of the current status of the products mentioned.