Systematic assessment of the warming trend in Madagascar's mainland daytime land surface temperature from 2000 to 2019

Abstract

Land surface temperature (LST) is one of the main components in the physics of soil surface processes for confirmation of atmospheric temperature variation. Assessment on LST, regionally, is essential because it is highly vulnerable to environmental changes. The intense world's population growth, resulting in land changes for anthropic purposes. Madagascar's role as a biodiversity hotspot, has been experiencing a land change crisis resulting from significant deforestation since 2000. Vegetation cover is decreasing and being replaced by agricultural land and grazing, contributing to total greenhouse gasses (GHG) emissions. Therefore, this study evaluates the LST trend in Madagascar using LST data derived from MODIS Terra Satellite from February 2000–November 2019. This study estimated the 19-year linear trend of each four regions (9 seasonal-adjusted LST time series) and entire Madagascar using a multivariate regression model. In this study, Madagascar is divided into four regions; upper north, lower north, upper south, and lower south; and 36 sub-regions in order to minimize spatial autocorrelation. The results found: 1) There are seasonal variations in different sub-region, 2) The highest average LST increase per decade occurred in the lower south region of Madagascar (0.429 °C/decade), 3) LST has significantly increased in the eastern coast and south of Madagascar, the two deforestation hotspots 4) LST in Madagascar is warming by 0.338 °C/decade. Our study suggests that land use and land cover (LULC) is crucial in identifying LST.