Combining thermal inertia and a diurnal temperature difference cycle model to estimate thermal inertia from MSG-SEVIRI data

摘要

Thermal inertia is an important parameter in geological and agricultural applications. In this study, we present a method that combines models of thermal inertia and the diurnal temperature difference cycle to estimate the thermal inertia from Meteosat Second Generation Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager (MSG-SEVIRI) data. This method can directly derive thermal inertia from MSG-SEVIRI brightness temperatures without the need to include the land surface temperature and emissivity. Two important parameters (the time of the maximum temperature and the diurnal temperature difference) that were input into the thermal inertia model were obtained by fitting the diurnal temperature difference cycle model to the diurnal cycle of land surface temperatures. The spatial distribution of thermal inertia shows that high thermal inertia values occur over vegetated areas, whereas low thermal inertia values occur over bare areas. The uncertainty in thermal inertia is investigated in terms of the uncertainties in the surface albedo, the time of the maximum temperature, and the diurnal temperature difference. The results indicate that the uncertainty in thermal inertia over vegetated areas is greater than that over bare areas. The consistency of the thermal inertia model is evaluated by analysing the difference in thermal inertia values on two consecutive days. The root mean square error of the thermal inertia differences under nearly identical surface and atmospheric conditions on two consecutive days is considered to be the error of the thermal inertia model.