Hourly land surface temperature climate data for Africa and Europe back to 1983

The CM SAF releases its second version of the Land Surface Temperature (LST) CDR. This CDR provides surface temperatures with an unpreceded temporal stability at high spatial resolution back to 1983. Surface temperature anomalies in Europe, as observed from near surface air temperature measurements, can be reproduced from CM SAF LSTs for the entire WMO climate reference period 1991-2020 (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: Monthly mean time series of the CM SAF LST (red) as compared to homogenized surface air temperature measurements (blue) at 466 stations over Europe. Above: monthly mean air temperature, below: monthly mean air temperature anomaly (seasonal corrected). Source: CM SAF

The CM SAF LST CDR has been developed in close cooperation with the Land Surface Analysis Satellite Application Facility (LSA SAF). The data record relies on intercalibrated infrared observations from Meteosat First- and Second-Generation satellites (John et al. 2019). To ensure consistency across all satellite generations a single channel LST retrieval was implemented (Duguay-Tetzlaff et al. 2015).

The data are available from 1983 to 2020 as hourly and as monthly diurnal cycle composites. It covers the region ±65° longitude and ±65° latitude on a 0.05° x 0.05° regular grid.

This new Land Surface Temperature CDR enables climatological heat and drought assessment in all corners of Africa and most parts of Europe.

The data record can be ordered via the Web User Interface. More information on the data record is available from the DOI page: https://doi.org/10.5676/EUM_SAF_CM/LST_METEOSAT/V002

References:
John, V.O.; Tabata, T.; Rüthrich, F.; Roebeling, R.; Hewison, T.; Stöckli, R.; Schulz, J. On the Methods for Recalibrating Geostationary Longwave Channels Using Polar Orbiting Infrared Sounders. Remote Sens. 2019, 11, 1171. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11101171

Duguay-Tetzlaff, A.; Bento, V.A.; Göttsche, F.M.; Stöckli, R.; Martins, J.P.A.; Trigo, I.; Olesen, F.; Bojanowski, J.S.; Da Camara, C.; Kunz, H. Meteosat Land Surface Temperature Climate Data Record: Achievable Accuracy and Potential Uncertainties. Remote Sens. 2015, 7, 13139-13156. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs71013139

NaS / May2024