Temporal Analysis of Land Surface Temperature in Beijing Utilizing Remote Sensing Imagery

Land surface temperature (LST) is of great interest to a variety of environmental studies. In this paper, Beijing is chosen as study area, and a time series of Landsat TM/ETM+ and ASTER images are utilized to learn the distribution and change of LST within this city. Generalized single-channel method and split-window algorithm are applied respectively in the retrieval of LST from Landsat TM/ETM+ images and ASTER images. The LST data are converted to histogram equalized maps and then synthetically compared and analyzed. Spatial distribution of LST in the summer of each year is concluded, as well as the temporal diversion. It is learned that the Heat Island Effect has been mitigated since the year 1999. In the final part, the achievement and disadvantages of this analysis are concluded, and the future efforts are pointed out as well.