Mapping daily evapotranspiration at field to global scales using geostationary and polar orbiting satellite imagery

Abstract. Thermal infrared (TIR) remote sensing of land-surface temperature (LST) provides valuable information about the sub-surface moisture status required for estimating evapotranspiration (ET) and detecting the onset and severity of drought. While empirical indices measuring anomalies in LST and vegetation amount (e.g., as quantified by the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index; NDVI) have demonstrated utility in monitoring ET and drought conditions over large areas, they may provide ambiguous results when other factors (soil moisture, advection, air temperature) are affecting plant stress. A more physically based interpretation of LST and NDVI and their relationship to sub-surface mo…

Actual evapotranspiration assessment in a sparse tall Mediterranean crops

Analysis of energy fluxes estimations over Italy using time-differencing models based on thermal remote sensing data

Large area estimations of land surface fluxes can be a useful operational tool for up-scaling local measurements and can serve as an upper-boundary condition for higher spatial resolution applications. Given hourly measurements of radiometric surface temperature from a geostationary satellite, it is possible to derive the partitioning of energy fluxes based on the influence of the evapotranspiration process on morning surface temperature rise. In this work, the Atmosphere-Land Exchange Inverse (ALEXI) model and the Dual Temperature Difference (DTD) approach were applied in order to relate the sensible heat flux to time-differential remote observations of surface temperature obtained from Me…