Water surface temperature retrieval for a small lake using aster thermal infrared data

Water temperature is an important environmental factor for lives in small water bodies like lakes and marshes, but is not fully or never monitored except for some of major water bodies. The authors are therefore developing a water temperature database of small water bodies in Japan using ASTER thermal infrared imagery. The current algorithm for water temperature retrieval is an alternative approach to the ASTER standard processing, which includes recalibration, straylight correction, improved atmospheric correction (a water vapor scaling method; WVS). For algorithm validation, we have deployed water-temperature loggers at Lake Senba in Japan since August 2009. In the present study, we demonstrate early validation results using nine cloud-free ASTER scenes (5 daytime and 4 nighttime scenes) over Lake Senba. The results indicate that the WVS algorithm with recalibration and straylight correction worked successfully.